The Reeds are a very loving, slightly dysfunctional family — but a summer of individual changes is about to shake their tight family unit. Bobby, the father, loses his executive job while his wife Mimi’s lucrative home-run business leaps ahead. Their adopted son, Abbie, leverages his internet stardom into the makings of a career, while their adopted daughter, Dee, discovers who she really is. They’ll have to navigate the shifting landscapes of commerce and fame in the age of the internet, office politics, gender dynamics, and sexuality in a world that has just seen Brexit, Trump, and heightened climate anxiety. Set in Montreal’s west end, The Reeds is about family, love, and nostalgia while exploring the dehumanization of work and the power of art against a backdrop of mid-century modern furniture, shag carpeting, the relentlessness of change, gentrification, and Korean fried chicken. In many ways, The Reeds is an optimistic story about the middle class, its hopes, ambitions, and challenges.

Arjun Basu is a writer and editor. In 2008, he published Squishy, a collection of short stories that was shortlisted for the ReLit Prize. His stories have been published in many literary journals, including Matrix and Joyland. He also writes 140-character short stories he calls Twisters on Twitter (@ArjunBasu), which have won him a Shorty Award, lots of press, and a worldwide following. Arjun lives in Montreal with his wife, son, and dog. This is his first novel.

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“The Reeds is sharp, wildly hilarious, touching, and profound. I sank into the thick shag of the characters — their isolation and anxieties, their moments that made me wince — and I never wanted to leave. Maybe art can’t be perfect, but Arjun Basu comes as close as it gets.” — Chris Harding Thornton, author of Pickard County Atlas

“Such a generous, big-hearted book. ‘The world is a wondrous and just place,’ Basu writes — so rare to read a portrait of a contemporary family that is this grown-up, attentive, and full of love, as if Ted Lasso went back to school for a PhD in American lit.” — Sean Michaels, Giller Prize–winning author of Us Conductors and Do You Remember Being Born?

“The Reeds is ambitious, intimate, and wise, a surprisingly beautiful and ultimately optimistic story about deeply flawed, authentic humans. Arjun Basu is one of the very best writers working today.” — Timothy Taylor, author of Stanley Park and The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf