Big Mall by Kate Black

Kate Black grew up in West Edmonton Mall a mall on steroids, notorious for its indoor waterpark, deadly roller coaster, and controversial dolphin shows. But everyone has a favourite mall, or a mall that is their own personal memory palace. It's a place people love to hate and hate to love a site of pleasure and pain, of death and violence, of (sub)urban legend.

Blending a history of shopping with a story of coming of age in North America's largest and strangest mall,Big Mallinvestigates how these structures have become the ultimate symbol of late-capitalist dread and, surprisingly, a subversive site of hope. (From Coach House Books)

• 26 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in spring 2024

Kate Black is a Vancouver-based writer whose essays have been published in Maisonneuve, The Walrus and The Globe and Mail. She was named one of Canada's top emerging voices in nonfiction by the 2020 National Magazine Awards and RBC Taylor Prize.

Interviews with Kate Black

Edmonton AM7:15An author explores the notoriety and nostalgia of West Edmonton Mall in her new book

"Can malls tell us something important about who we are?" That's one of the questions author Kate Black asks in her new book, Big Mall. Kate grew up strolling the hallowed halls of West Edmonton Mall.

On The Coast6:02What can malls teach us?

Vancouver author, Kate Black, tells Amy Bell how growing up near West Edmonton Mall shaped her childhood.