Things I Will Tell You When I am Dead - Softcover

Whelan, Kathleen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1927725259 ISBN 13: 9781927725252

Publisher: Hidden Brook Press, 2017

Synopsis

 

 

Kathleen Whelan writes with one of the most unique voices in Canadian literature I've ever heard. These stories are surreal and yet they don't fit cleanly into the surrealist genre. These stories are also real without being realist and, at the same time, absurd in the tradition of Kafka and Beckett. They are absurdly real. Perhaps, the best description of Whelan's style is absurd-realism, but the truth is Things I Will Tell You When I'm Dead is so original it defies all genre categories; it surprises and unsettles like a strange, yet somehow beautifully crafted dream.

Jacob Scheier,

Governor General Award winning author of

‘More to Keep us Warm’ (ECW Press, 2007)

 

Kathleen Whelan’s distinctive voice shines through in Things I Will Tell You When I am Dead, her first book of stories. Readers of Whelan’s work have been waiting for her debut collection, and the waiting is finally over. The appealing directness of Whelan’s prose, her startling images and irreverence—Whelan’s stories both wrench the heart and clench the gut in often hilarious stories that are relayed in a wildly entertaining and startling, moving style that is uniquely Kathleen Whelan’s.

J. Jill Robinson

author of the novel ‘More in Anger’

and four collections of short stories.

 

Kathleen Whelan lives in her own, strangely slanted world – much like the rest of us. The difference is, she knows how to open the door to her world, even if only a crack, and invite you to peek in. If you’re brave enough, you might actually enter. But don’t enter if you’re looking for some kind of redemption. Do it with an open mind and you’ll encounter a fear that borders on elation and that will tear you open and make you cry, either with sorrow, or with joy, and often with both simultaneously.

Kathleen’s sentences are ragged at the edges, like strips of cloth flapping in the wind, they twine together, then shiver apart, suggesting a chaos that never quite materializes, but also never ceases to threaten the narrative.

I read a lot of these stories years ago and was awestruck and mystified by Kathleen’s way. I didn’t know exactly how she did it, but I wanted more... and she was kind enough to share more with me. Reading these stories again now, I am still mystified. Kathleen reminds me that it is still possible for me to be lost. It’s okay to be lost. Lost is a valid, and often wondrous place to be.

Ken Sparling

is the author of six novels,

has been shortlisted for the Trillium Award.

 

About this title

Review:

Things I Will Tell You When I Am Dead is a testament to the ways in which the short story form can both elevate and re-define the simplest, at times most tragic - and comic - incidents that shape and create a single life. From nuclear disasters to Elvis ‘sightings’ that invoke scenes of cowboys and falling mattresses, these stories attend to the representation of life’s most madcap adventures with a surefooted sense of how narrative moves seamlessly, both in and out of tragedy and comedy at the flick of wrist and the turn of a word. A photograph of a woman in a lace nightgown becomes a premonition for beauty in the life of a curious child. A young woman’s longing moves forward into a life spent far away from the original images that shape longing, desire, and the ability to move through a variety of life-changing experiences, through childhood and into maturity.

 

In Geography the writer crafts a story that opens with a direct and startling encounter between a man and a woman that illustrates the complex and material ways in which we engage with the present and the past. The final instalment of this thirteen-tiered collection ends with religious imagery that reprises earlier themes and makes the reading of Things I Will Tell You When I Am Dead a truly moving and life affirming experience that exists in heavenly realms above and beyond the phenomenon of earthly experience.

About the Author:

Kathleen Whelan's short fiction has appeared in various Canadian journals such as BLOOD & APHORISMS, BROKEN PENCIL, OTHER VOICES; sub TERRAIN AND TADDLE CREEK. Things I Will Tell You When I Am Dead is Kathleen Whelan's first collection of short stories. Kathleen Whelan's short fiction has appeared in various Canadian journals such as BLOOD & APHORISMS, BROKEN PENCIL, OTHER VOICES; sub TERRAIN AND TADDLE CREEK. Whelan's poetry has been published in an Irish broadsheet, THE BROBDINGNIAN TIMES. Kathleen's non-fiction was published in New Zealand's ALLERGY TODAY and Alberta's OTHER VOICES. Kathleen was a producer of " A NUTTY TALE" for CBC's Outfront and was the narrator of a Barry Lank's documentary SABRINA'S LAW, produced by the NATIONAL FILM BOARD and GLOBAL. A limited edition chapbook of Whelan's short fiction titled SWIMMING ON ICE was published by David Bateman. Kathleen has been the recipient of emerging writer's grants from the Canada Council and the Toronto Arts Council. She has attended the Banff Centre's Wired Writing Studio. Things I Will Tell you When I am Dead is Kathleen Whelan's first book. She is currently working on a collection of poetry, A Night Out With Steve. Kathleen lives in Toronto.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hidden Brook Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1927725259
• ISBN 13: 9781927725252
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 134