A Bird on Every Tree by Carol Bruneau

Atlantic Book Awards, Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)

Shortlisted Atlantic Book Awards, Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction

Carol Bruneau, author of six acclaimed works of fiction (most recently, These Good Hands), brings her finely honed voice to 12 new stories about shifting concepts of Nova Scotian identity.

In “The Race,” a war bride’s remarkable life trajectory unfolds as she competes in an international swim marathon in the Northwest Arm. Strain erupts between a Haligonian couple in “Burning Times,” while they struggle to keep track of one another, both physically and emotionally, on an Italian vacation. In “Polio Beach,” cousins gather oceanside over the will of a recently deceased aunt who once saved one of them from drowning.

Writing with empathy, humour, and linguistic precision, Bruneau follows characters who find themselves connected to Nova Scotia by birth, through attempts at escape and new beginnings, or as a temporary resting place, always carrying with them their own idiosyncratic and complex definitions of “home.”

Paperback, 152 pages

The Author: Carol Bruneau is the author of three short story collections and four novels. Her first novel, Purple for Sky, won the 2001 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award. Her 2007 novel, Glass Voices, was a Globe and Mail Best Book. Her reviews, stories, and essays have appeared nationwide in newspapers, journals, and anthologies, and two of her novels have been published internationally. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her husband, their dog, and their cat.