"[A] memorable portrait of a struggling young person who finds unexpected resilience and peace . . . Hilarious, heartbreaking, and poignant." —Booklist
From the author of Women Talking—now an Academy Award-winning film starring Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Frances McDormand, and Jessie Buckley

Miriam Toews welcomes her readers to the Have–a–Life housing project (better known as Half–a–Life). The welfare regulations are endless and the rate–fink neighbors won't mind their own business. Lucy Von Alstyne sends fictitious letters to her friend Alicia, pretending to be the father of Alicia's twins. When the two mothers and their five children set off on a journey to find him, facing along the way the complications of living in poverty and raising fatherless children, Lucy discovers this just may be the summer of her amazing luck.

Miriam Toews is the author of two previous award-winning novels, Summer of My Amazing Luck and A Boy of Good Breeding, as well as the memoir Swing Low: A Life. She contributes frequently to CBC Radio, National Public Radio, and the New York Times Magazine, and has received a gold medal in the National Magazine Awards for humour.

Miriam Toews' profile page

Praise for Summer of My Amazing Luck

"A picaresque account of two welfare moms having loopy adventures and getting by in the city . . . The novel’s voice [is] amused, warm, curious, alive on the page." —Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker

"A comic take on what initially appears a most improbable topic for humour . . . it works." —The Globe and Mail

"Toews, author of A Complicated Kindness (2004), offers a mellow summer interlude that allows readers to revel in the not–so–simple pleasures of small–town life, and consider what matters most." —Danise Hoover, Booklist

"The novel offers a humorous look at the absurdities of the Canadian welfare system while unwinding the intricacies of a sticky–sweet friendship." —Publishers Weekly

Great read with some laughs

by vwruleschick