This Is How You Start to Disappear
(eBook)

These twelve new short stories from Astrid Blodgett explore the consequences of grief and denial and single moments that change perceptions, lives, and attachments forever. Crisp prose and unexpected plot twists move relatable characters through vivid outdoor settings and interior depths. A child negotiates adult behaviour when an injured dog is put down. An older sister bribes a younger one to go on her first date. A family canoe trip launches from Disaster Point. A woman wants to hurl her granddaughter's birthday cake out the window. This Is How You Start to Disappear shows all the heartbreaking ways we evolve when coping with change or trauma. Tension-filled short stories that show all the heartbreaking ways we evolve when coping with change or trauma. Astrid Blodgett is a short story writer from Edmonton / amiskwaciwâskahikan. Her work has appeared in The Journey Prize Anthology, Meltwater: Fiction and Poetry from the Banff Centre for the Arts, and many Canadian literary magazines. She was short-listed for the Writers' Guild of Alberta Howard O'Hagan Award for Short Story, and her first collection, You Haven't Changed a Bit, was long-listed for a ReLit Award, a runner up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and a finalist for the High Plains Book Award for Short Stories. These People Have Nothing Devil's Lake Everything's Fine, Actually Alex and Clayton and Raylene and Me This Will All Be Over Soon The Fainting Game The Kite How to Read Water Dear Hector When Sleep is Easy The Night the Moon Was Bright and We Ate Pigs and Brownies and Drank Fizzy Beer and Didn't Remember Much at All, in the End The Golden Rice Bowl "This Is How You Start to Disappear is for readers who revel in stories told with both skill and passion, stories with twists, stories without ready resolutions." Rona Altrows, author of At This Juncture "In these precisely paced and deceptively dark stories, Astrid Blodgett sweeps out the dust bunnies of contempt and devastation from the junk drawers of her characters' family homes. These stories do what short stories do best: every word flexes its muscles, every detail teeters on an iceberg of deeper meaning. This Is How You Start To Disappear is a complex and satisfying compilation of unsteady bridge crossings between our childhood and adult selves." Susan Sanford Blades, author of Fake It So Real "This collection is an intimate embrace of the moments and memories that define us. With pitch perfect prose and heaps of tension, Blodgett pierces so deep into her characters' hearts and minds you feel as if you breathe their same air. Beautifully imagined and bursting with compassion, every story is a stunner!" Fran Kimmel, author of The Shore Girl and No Good Asking "With compassion and acute observation, Astrid Blodgett writes about events, large and seemingly small, that can change the trajectory of a life. Familial fractures spread like cracks in winter ice as Blodgett investigates those moments that divide her characters' lives into "before" and "after," whether they are loyalty tests one sister demands of another or a father so preoccupied with his new relationship that he can't see his young daughter's struggles at a skating party. At times, Blodgett's characters recognize a life-changing event only after it has swept past them, but the reverberations will be felt for decades to come. These finely wrought, multigenerational stories pivot around such moments, as ordinary working people cope with the unexpected tragedy and dislocating circumstances of their unfolding lives." Rachel Rose, Giller-longlisted author of The Octopus Has Three Hearts Tension-filled short stories that show all the heartbreaking ways we evolve when coping with change or trauma. "Readers will enjoy Astrid Blodgett's new collection of short stories. Her characters, plots, and incidents have originality and she