***2022 BMO WINTERSET AWARD – LONGLIST***

***2023 NL READS – FINALIST***

The Wards are a working-class Newfoundland family on the cusp of upheaval. The children are becoming adults, the adults are growing old, and the new dog was probably stolen. When a sudden illness forces the Wards together, can they finally learn to be close-knit?

This unsettling, at times hilarious novel explores the instability of nuclear families and the depths of dysfunction.

Family is family—you don’t get to choose.

So what, exactly, do you get to choose?

Terry Doyle is from the Goulds, Newfoundland. His first book, Dig, was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction, the ReLit Award for Fiction, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Fiction, and the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Award.

Terry Doyle's profile page

• Short-listed, NL Reads
• Long-listed, BMO Winterset Award

“[A] first novel, this one concerning the evocatively surnamed working-class family in present-day St. John’s. Consistently, the characters are revealed and constructed through attitudes and actions, never explicitly described. We don’t really know what they ‘look’ like, but we can see them.”

The Telegram