Kirjahaku

Lee is a grown man with a sweet tooth and a mild case of uniform fetish. A phone call from a distant hospital summons him to the bedside of his father, Arthur; a man he barely knew. He seeks solace in his father's nurses, despite being told they attend mandatory training on not dating the bereaved. With Rita, he discovers she's more interested in Jesus. With Ann, Lee finds himself on random circling routes along country roads, looking for her missing dog Quincy. When his eccentric mother Pet shows up, she starts to spill gin and family secrets. Do these explain why their only photo of Arthur is a shadow cast from behind the camera? A love story - intimate, warm, drily humorous - about the missing parts of our lives, and the things we fill them with.

"I write because there are things I can't sing. There are ways of writing that can't be sung. I write because I watch," says Jeb Loy Nichols, an internationally acclaimed musician and artist, about his literary art. In this unforgettable novel, Suzanne has arranged her life to suit her solitariness, living quietly on her untended hill farm. Her days are a word-shy negotiation, caught between indifference and uncertainty. Into this world comes Gertrude, a wandering donkey. Together they form an unlikely alliance; each protecting the solitude of the other. Suzanne and Gertrude is a tale of intermittent griefs and wonderments. How do we live, not just with each other, but with memories, with impermanence, with the inevitable melancholy of being? Suzanne and Gertrude is a spare novel with a profound impact.