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Offering a fresh take on what it is to grow up and discover who you really are.
Eleven-year-old Maya Devine has grown up with a warped view of reality. For one, she sees colour around people’s bodies and can sometimes hear what’s going on inside their heads. These insights make everyone a bit more interesting, but the one person she’ll never figure out is her mother. Marigold has never been like other moms, but still, Maya sometimes feels like she is all she has. When Marigold is diagnosed with cancer and vows to spend her final days in the teepee she’s set up in the backyard, Maya’s life quickly becomes unbearable. Neighbours and strangers, believing Marigold a prophet, camp out in the front yard, and Maya’s father grows ever more distant. Thankfully Maya has Corey Hart, from whose pouty lips "Never Surrender" seems to issue for her and her alone. But Marigold’s death leaves questions unanswered, and there are some wrongs that even Corey Hart can’t right. Moving from mid-1980s Saskatoon to the Indian countryside almost a decade later, Girl in Shades follows Maya’s search for her mother, her father, and above all, herself. |
"There is no greater gift for a songwriter than knowing his words and music have inspired or touched someone. Allison Baggio's Girl in Shades is one such example."
-- Corey Hart
“For Maya Devine, growing up is more demanding and more intense than anyone can imagine. Her story holds messages and lessons about life, love, priorities, death and identity. Indeed, Maya’s story speaks to the wanderer in all of us.”
-- Guelph Mercury
“It’s an engaging tale, and Maya is an always compelling character as she grows from anxious 12 to self-confident and yes, mystical 20.”
-- Booklist
“There is a tenderness to Baggio's heroine that is reminiscent of a Judy Blume character -- and as her home life unravels, Baggio articulates Maya's vulnerability with heart-rending effect.”
-- Winnipeg Free Press
“There are no words I can use to adequately describe my love for Girl in Shades . . . [it] is an intense character driven drama that should be read by everyone.”
-- Nicole at nicoleabouttown.com
-- Corey Hart
“For Maya Devine, growing up is more demanding and more intense than anyone can imagine. Her story holds messages and lessons about life, love, priorities, death and identity. Indeed, Maya’s story speaks to the wanderer in all of us.”
-- Guelph Mercury
“It’s an engaging tale, and Maya is an always compelling character as she grows from anxious 12 to self-confident and yes, mystical 20.”
-- Booklist
“There is a tenderness to Baggio's heroine that is reminiscent of a Judy Blume character -- and as her home life unravels, Baggio articulates Maya's vulnerability with heart-rending effect.”
-- Winnipeg Free Press
“There are no words I can use to adequately describe my love for Girl in Shades . . . [it] is an intense character driven drama that should be read by everyone.”
-- Nicole at nicoleabouttown.com
Published by ECW Press in 2012
www.ecwpress.com |
An unflinching look at the human body and the ways it defines, fails, and frees us.
Building on themes introduced in her novel Girl in Shades, Allison Baggio explores the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds with In the Body, a collection of 12 short stories and the novella "As She Was." Baggio’s range of voice and breadth of vision are showcased in stories like "Spilt Milk," where an ordinary fare leads an Indo-Canadian taxi driver, who is unhappy with his current circumstances, to marry his passenger’s unattractive sister. In "Possessed," a man receives a heart transplant and begins to suspect that his new heart is still attached to its old owner. The novella follows a teenage girl who, after a motorcycle accident, is left with a serious brain injury that dramatically alters her personality and body. The five people closest to her must reflect on who she was in order to come to terms with who she has become. In the Body is a stunning examination of the clash between how we perceive our own bodies and how we are perceived by others. |
"From blood to bone to hands and feet, Baggio explores the bodies of her characters to reveal their most vulnerable spot -- the human heart."
-- Brian Francis, author of Fruit and Natural Order
"In the Body is original, energetic, and utterly captivating. In each of its stories, Allison Baggio places the reader right in the heart of trauma. These are stories that matter, stories that are intensely dramatic, stories that are as bizarre as they are believable. In the Body is full of surprise and emotional vitality, both of which held me captive from the first page to the last."
-- Angie Abdou, author of The Bone Cage and The Canterbury Trail
"Allison Baggio's stories plunge marrow deep, documenting the flesh and bone and breath that make our experiences human."
-- Darcie Friesen Hossack, author of Mennonites Don't Dance
"With careful, deliberate prose, Baggio explores uncommon and exceptional circumstances to seek broader truths about our relationships to the flesh we inhabit."
-- Shawn Syms, Necessary Fiction
". . .this assortment of short stories is one of the most audacious books I've read all year."
-- Jennifer Hunter, The Toronto Star
-- Brian Francis, author of Fruit and Natural Order
"In the Body is original, energetic, and utterly captivating. In each of its stories, Allison Baggio places the reader right in the heart of trauma. These are stories that matter, stories that are intensely dramatic, stories that are as bizarre as they are believable. In the Body is full of surprise and emotional vitality, both of which held me captive from the first page to the last."
-- Angie Abdou, author of The Bone Cage and The Canterbury Trail
"Allison Baggio's stories plunge marrow deep, documenting the flesh and bone and breath that make our experiences human."
-- Darcie Friesen Hossack, author of Mennonites Don't Dance
"With careful, deliberate prose, Baggio explores uncommon and exceptional circumstances to seek broader truths about our relationships to the flesh we inhabit."
-- Shawn Syms, Necessary Fiction
". . .this assortment of short stories is one of the most audacious books I've read all year."
-- Jennifer Hunter, The Toronto Star