Tuesday, July 26
7 PM
FREE
Shelf Life Books in Calgary, Alberta
Join Shelf Life Books & Thistledown Press for an evening of readings with authors Katherine Walker and Lee Gowan.
If you’d like to attend, please register! Shelf Life Books has limited capacity, so registration is recommended. You can do so here.
ABOUT ALL IS WELL
Christine Wright is having a bad day. She’s an ex-special forces soldier and a recovering alcoholic, and now her new career as a church minister has started off with the worst kind of bang. Could it be her reflexes are a little too twitchy for this job?
From the opening page, this fast-paced tale is all about a cover up: the burying of a body, while fending off an angry widow, and a very suspicious parishioner appalled by the loss of a precious church artifact. And then there’s the vengeful plot of a terminally ill military-cop-turned-stalker who plans to get Christine locked up if it’s the last thing he does.
Among the many revelations and surprises we experience is the fact that we’re instantly on the side of the unfailingly flawed and irreverent Christine—who cannot imitate a perfectly pious priest even though her life so clearly depends on it. Mystic Julian of Norwich, she of the famous “all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” is the patron saint of this wickedly funny novel.
All Is Well for Katherine Walker’s readers despite, or because of, Reverend Wright’s many wrongs.
ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL PLACE
Lee Gowan’s new novel is an audacious sequel to Sinclair Ross’ prairie classic, As for Me and My House. The Beautiful Place is about a man who is in trouble in love and work—a darkly funny cautionary tale for our times.
The man we know only as Bentley is facing a triple threat—in other words, his life is a hot mess every way he looks. Like anyone who feels that he’s on the brink of annihilation, Bentley thinks back to his misspent youth, which was also the year he met his famous grandfather, the painter Philip Bentley, for the first time. To make matters worse, he has inherited his grandfather’s tendency to self-doubt, as well as that cranky artist’s old service pistol.
Our hero is confused about so much. How did he end up as a cryonics salesman—a huckster for a dubious afterlife—when he wanted to be a writer? And who is the mysterious Mary Abraham, and why is she the thread unravelling his unhappy present? What will be left when all the strands come undone?
Lee Gowan’s The Beautiful Place is the best kind of journey: both psychological and real, with a lot of quick-on-the-draw conversations and stunning scenery along the way —and only one gun, which may or may not be loaded.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Lee Gowan grew up on a farm near Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and studied at the University of British Columbia, where he earned an MFA in creative writing. He is the author of three previous novels: Confession, The Last Cowboy, and Make Believe Love, which was shortlisted for the Trillium Award for Best Book in Ontario. He is also an award-winning screenwriter, and was nominated for a Gemini Award for his screenplay Paris or Somewhere. He is currently Program Director, Creative Writing and Business Communications, at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies.
Katherine Walker was born and raised in Calgary, located in the Treaty 7 region on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, and the Métis Nation (Region 3). She studied fine arts and design and after working as a graphic designer up north, Katherine joined the Royal Canadian Navy, which took her to the west and east coasts and out to sea. Her recent graduate studies in divinity, along with her artistic and military background, enhance her journey through life. You can talk with Katherine about divine guidance, dismantling underwater mines, or the connection between beauty and truth. Katherine is grateful for the tradition of story, the wilderness, and every breath in this amazing life. All Is Well is her first novel.
