Hero, the hyper-precocious and nosily omniscient narrator of Terry Griggs's riotous new book, The Discovery of Honey, is not one to hide her light under a bushel, nor to conceal significant, usually scandalous, happenings in her rural hometown, including her own conception, birth, and various other unruly incidents that occur throughout her young life.

Running wild even before she can walk, Hero goes on a dangerous road trip with an aunt, later takes up with her feral, bad-boy cousin, investigates a crime, kills a best friendship with a few aggressively-applied home truths, falls in conflicted love with the cousin, then determinedly, if unconvincingly, falls out.

A backwater bildungsroman—"dung" definitely included, as Hero is forthright dishing the dirt—The Discovery of Honey confirms Griggs as one of the most uproarious and confoundingly original writers at work today. It's funny business all around.

Terry Griggs's first book, Quickening, was nominated for the Governor General's Award in 1991. She has published in magazines and anthologies, including The Journey Prize Anthology and Writing Home: A PEN Anthology. She has also written one literary mystery novel and a novel for young adults, and won the Marion Engel Award in 2003. She is also the author of a trilogy of children's books, Cat's Eye Corner, The Silver Door, and Invisible Ink. Terry Griggs lives in Stratford, Ontario.

Terry Griggs' profile page

PRAISE FOR THE DISCOVERY OF HONEY

“For me it was another case of love at first line and I knew in an instant I wouldn’t be putting the book down until I’d finished it.” —James Crossley, Mercer Island Books

“A postmodern picaresque.”—Quill & Quire

“Griggs loves words in a way that can be contagious to the reader.”—National Post

“The Discovery of Honey is packed full of vivid imagery, moving metaphors, precise prose, laugh-out-loud observations and sad essential truths.”—Winnipeg Free Press

PRAISE FOR TERRY GRIGGS

“The language, the verbal fireworks, the apparently limitless stream of image and metaphor—startling, heady, hilarious—do it all.”—The Globe and Mail

“When her poetic sensibility is joined to a narrative that is both wildly comic and poignant in mood, which happens often in her stories, the results are superb.”—Toronto Star

“Griggs creates magical transformations with words alone.”—The Vancouver Sun

“Terry Griggs [has] made her mark as an original and arresting writer with a potential to be consistently inventive and brilliant.”—Jury for the Marian Engel Award

“She's a wildly inventive storyteller, gifted with a superb turn of phrase.”—Montreal Gazette