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Hellgoing

Lynn Coady's short story collection won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2013.

Lynn Coady

CBC Books CBC Posted: Feb 08, 2017 10:29 AM EST | Last Updated: March 16, 2017

Lynn Coady gives us nine unforgettable new stories, each one of them grabbing our attention from the first line and resonating long after the last. A young nun charged with talking an anorexic out of her religious fanaticism toys with the thin distance between practicality and blasphemy. A strange bond between a teacher and a schoolgirl takes on ever deeper, and stranger, shapes as the years progress. A bride-to-be with a penchant for nocturnal bondage can't seem to stop bashing herself up in the light of day. (From House of Anansi Press)

Hellgoingwon the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Coady was also shortlisted for the award in 2011 with her novelThe Antagonist.

Read an excerpt | Author interviews

From the book

Jane salutes you from an age where to be an aficionado is to find yourself too foolishly situated in the world. Where to care a great deal about something, no matter how implicitly interesting it may be, is to come across as a kind of freak. It's interest inordinate interest in something seemingly arbitrary, having little do with you or the context you inhabit. Beanie Babies, say, or Glenn Gould. Jane once a person who insisted he "was crazy about Glenn Gould," who owned all these rare and exotic recordings. Called himself a glennered, happily, smugly. Did other Gould fanatics call themselves glennerds? Jane wanted to know. The glennered shrugged, didn't care. It wasn't about other glennerds, Jane saw, it was only about this particular glennered, him and his fascination. This person was not a musician. Didn't listen to classical music, as a rule.

From Hellgoing by Lynn Coady 2013. Published byHouse of Anansi Press.

Author interviews

CBC Books: Lynn Coady

13 years ago

4:32

The author of The Antagonist talks about her literary inspirations.

Lynn Coady on Hellgoing

11 years ago

4:07

The Edmonton writer on the theme woven through her short story collection and how that form differs from penning novels

Author Lynn Coady on why she writes stories about the Maritimes

9 years ago

2:30

In this edition of Storytellers, author Lynn Coady recounts finding her voice as a writer in rural Cape Breton.

The Next Chapter14:32Lynn Coady on "Who Needs Books?: Reading in the Digital Age"

Lynn Coady on her book about how books and literature are not dying in the digital age.