Hellgoing

by Lynn Coady

Winner of the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Selected as an Amazon.ca Best Book and for The Globe's Top 10 Books of 2013.


With astonishing range and depth, Scotiabank Giller Prize winner 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.


Equally adept at capturing the foibles and obsessions of men and of women, compassionate in her humour yet never missing an opportunity to make her characters squirm, fascinated as much by faithlessness as by faith, Lynn Coady is quite possibly the writer who best captures what it is to be human at this particular moment in our history.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Book Club, Audiobook, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

223 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2013

About the author

Lynn Coady is an award-winning author, editor, and journalist. Her previous novels include Saints of Big Harbour, which was a national bestseller and a Globe and Mail Top 100 book, and Mean Boy, a Globe and Mail Top 100 book. Her popular advice column, Group Therapy, runs weekly in the Globe and Mail. Coady is originally from Cape Breton Island, NS, and is now living in Edmonton, Alberta.

Reviews

[Shawn Bird · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't like books that make me feel stupid.

This book makes me feel stupid. It makes me feel like I must be missing something. Not only are the protagonists unsympathetic, but there are no clear conflicts, no resolutions, nothing that suggests a POINT to reading them.

Yes, they're very interesting character studies.
Yes, they show a slice of life.
But why shine the light on these sad vignettes, if not to bring some awareness, some consideration, some analysis?

It's like pointing at a disabled person in public and once everyone is looking, shaking the head and muttering, "Isn't that sad?" There's no dignity.

Bit by bit the characters are revealed, left naked, hanging in public to be stared at, with no redemption in sight.

It's depressing, and every story is the same tone. Damaged people in dark situations. No hope. No value.

Hellgoing indeed.

I don't understand why the critics are raving about this stuff. Why would anyone like this anguish? Masochists? Sadists?

I don't like it.

[Elle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, how I wanted to love these stories. I had very much enjoyed Coady's previous work The Antagonist, and with the knowledge that this recently won the Giller, I expected more. Sadly, I was left disappointed.

Short stories need to walk a fine line between giving the reader enough information to understand the characters and the story without taking up too much time. In reading these stories, it felt as though there were huge swathes - gaping holes - in which pertinent information was missing. The stories themselves all had the odd characteristic of bashing you over the head with their point while simultaneously being overly coy and vague in their endings.

Overall, I found it an entirely forgettable book, each story forgotten as soon as the next one was begun. I can't help but wonder if this book won the Giller either A) to balance out the lack of acknowledgment for The Antagonist (Coady's better work) or b) to support the notion, in the wake of Munro's Nobel won, that the short story is "back".

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

I closed the final page of this collection of short stories (a slim volume, doesn't take long to power through them) thinking that this was a curious choice to win the Giller Prize -- at first blush this wasn't my favourite Canadian book of the year; this wasn't even my favourite Canadian book of short stories of the year. This passage that I flagged early on persisted in sticking out in my mind:

Jane flops herself off Ned like a seal, grunting also like a seal. That's what she feels like at such times. All torso, no limbs. A long, tapering creature, new and primordial, like something pooped out of something else.

If that isn't the strangest sex scene I've ever read, I don't know what is. My mind kept returning to, "Why 'pooped'?" What a bizarre choice of word, especially in a capital "L" Literary work -- and this brain worm wouldn't let me go. And the more it gnawed at me the more I wondered if that wasn't rather the point: So much of what happens in Hellgoing is off-kilter like that -- characters' actions were baffling and upsetting to me, they seemed baffling and upsetting to the characters, and the more I thought about it the more I thought, "Well, isn't that just like real life?"

In many of the stories (Wireless, Dogs In Clothes, Take This And Eat It, Clear Skies, The Natural Elements), the main characters appear to be doing fine, just going about their daily routines, but small complications (memories or new events) are subtly added until, in the final paragraphs, these characters are trapped, cornered, and lashing out, fighting back (if only in their own minds) against something the people around them don't recognise. As these stories ended, I was repeatedly taken aback -- where did that come from? It was frustrating at the time, but like I said, these stories linger, and now I'm left considering that twenty pages isn't really that long to get to know somebody -- maybe twenty years isn't that long to get to know somebody. Hellgoing features friends and colleagues and siblings and parents and spouses who have no clue what's going through the minds of the people that they think they know -- and isn't that just like real life?

I was most especially affected by the final story, Mr. Hope. It reminded me so much of my own childhood and relationships I had with elementary school teachers, it felt so truthful, that I wondered how closely it might have been based on Lynn Coady's own childhood. Considering that a character in Clear Skies suggests that there is little difference, in the end, between memoir and fiction, this parenthetical aside in Mr. Hope struck me as significant:

(I always seem to be telling stories about chain-link fences, it occurs to me now. Maybe they're a thing belonging to the implicit troublemakers of this world; children and prisoners trying to get out; would-be criminals trying to get in.)

I could be reading too much into that, but coming as it did near the end of the collection, it felt like a note from the author instead of simply from the character, and it made me consider how so many of her characters felt fenced in; separated from the people around them. The book, and this story, ends on the line: There was a fence, and someone was against it. And isn't that just like real life?

The more I've thought about Hellgoing, and I can't stop thinking about it, the more stars it's earned, and in the end, somehow, it's because Coady used "pooped" in a sex scene, not despite it.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here is what he’s doing. He’s inhaling, and then letting the smoke pour out as he sings. It cascades from his face and swirls heavenward, enveloping them both as he extends the cigarette to his wife. A more honest gesture, now, a gesture like the nurses when they feed her, only loving.

And then of course he takes a look around, a guilty boy. As he has probably been doing intermittently throughout this performance.

And if they think I am going to stand here denouncing this and that, they are not smart. If they think I’m going to slap my palm against the light switch and start hollering for doctors and nurses and the pope, they don’t have to concern themselves. If they suppose I could possibly bother with any such nonsense, let them turn around and get on with what they’re doing. Let them do as they please, the whole bunch of them. Eat and smoke and starve and stand on your head as far as I’m concerned. Live and die and do what you want all over the place. I won’t be the one to say a word.

***

Lynn Coady’s sixth book, coming only two years after her impressive, Giller-shortlisted novel The Antagonist, is a collection of nine caustic short stories detailing an assortment of broken, isolated characters—mostly women—undone by obsessions, miscommunications, and bottled-up resentment.

In “Wireless,” a self-styled alcohol aficionado works to find ways to justify her obsession to a maybe-more-than-a-one-night-stand who shares her addiction, but is seemingly less comfortable admitting to his weaknesses. The emotionally exhausted assistant of a writer on a media blitz in “Dogs in Clothes” is further worn down by frequent notifications from her brother regarding their father’s seemingly unsuccessful open-heart surgery. A pushover of a landlord in “The Natural Elements” dotes in a fatherly way over a tenant—a woman abandoned in an unfamiliar environment by her professor husband.

Intense psychological unrest is prevalent in most of the stories in this collection. In “Take This and Eat it,” a nun attempts to get through to an anorexic girl who is starving herself for God, treading a fine high wire between respecting the girl’s rights to religious freedom and watching, waiting to be convinced her religion is merely a mask for deeper emotional issues. The bride-to-be at the heart of “An Otherworld” has a lust for bondage and an obvious desire to self-punish as if undeserving of happiness or stability. A young woman travels with her boyfriend in “Body Condom” to visit with his father, who, in his drug-addled past, abused and abandoned his family; while the boyfriend’s personality is very much head-in-the-clouds—more likely as a survival mechanism than naivety—his girlfriend’s bitterness bubbles to the surface—bitterness not only about being in love, but about being in love with him. And in “Mr. Hope,” a peculiar friendship blooms over several years between a student and her principal as he tests her to be better than she is, better than the subpar selection of students he’s tired of seeing in school day in and day out.

The two strongest stories in this collection are the titular “Hellgoing” and “Clear Skies.” In the former, a brother and sister come to understand one another as adults, united against emotional parental abuse while also being forced to acknowledge that elements of their parents will always be with them, inside. In the latter, meanwhile, a writer goes to a retreat to discuss her work with her peers… who really aren’t her peers because of how she sees them, as inauthentic approximations of various writers’ stereotypes.

There’s an overarching frustrated, atheistic tone to the stories in Hellgoing—a rejection of the existence of a plan or purpose for any one of us beyond that which we make for ourselves. Collectively, these are lost protagonists who, despite their surface connections and careers, seem more often to skirt the edges of introversion and isolationism. While this harder edge is welcome, the abrasiveness is like flotsam floating to the surface; Coady’s stories are conceptually cutting, as are her characters, but it’s all show—there’s little to any of them beyond anger and discontentment outwardly cast.

Though there are no quote-unquote bad stories in Hellgoing, neither is there any one in particular that stands out in my memory. Coady’s moment-to-moment writing is as good as ever, but unlike the pained and instantly captivating diamond in the rough at the heart of her previous novel, the characters in Hellgoing feel like basic ideas and emotions tied loosely together, and not realized people.

[Corinne Wasilewski · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not the Lynn Coady I'd come to expect. This Lynn Coady did not boldly walk that fine line between tragedy and comedy. She did not lay bare the souls of her characters in a way that makes the reader root for them or even love them. No, this Lynn Coady is dead serious. She writes stories about mostly women (many middle-aged) in various stages of despair. There is an alcoholic, a woman whose mother has recently died, a woman whose father is seriously ill, an ambivalent nun, a writer whose losing her faith in the power of words, and a woman whose lover abruptly walks away 10 years into their relationship. There is little to no fight in these women. What we have is resignation, fear, helplessness and boredom. They are a defeated cast.
I much preferred the "old" Lynn Coady. She was a lot more fun to be around and she never lost hope.

[Shirley Schwartz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was totally unexpected. It won the prestigious Giller Prize this year and even though I'm not a real fan of short stories, I expected it to be enjoyable. It was not; at least not to me. I found this book of nine short stories difficult to get through. I only read seven of the nine, but I didn't really understand much about the stories. Some were totally confusing like the story of the nun who made hospital visits and discovered a 14 year old girl with severe anorexia. The nun thinks she is reaching this girl and she thinks she'll get her to eat, but it doesn't work. The girls keeps coming back. We never find out what happens to the girl. Frustrating. And what about the story about the new bride who engages in sado-masochistic activities with her husband in the basement jungle that he has created? Bizarre. The other five stories that I read were equally as frustrating. I'm sorry Giller judges. You have made a mistake this time. I like stories with a beginning, and end, a plot to link them and characters that I can relate to and understand.

[Friederike Knabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lynn Coady's new story collection, Hellgoing, brings together nine self-contained stories that take a realistic and thought provoking look at a wide range of human relationships in today's world. Reading them we are pushed or pulled into something like a voyeur role, observing in close-up fragments of ongoing or evolving relationships between an array of distinct characters, be they in couples, with family or friends, or crossing paths in professional or casual encounters. Some of the stories can take you on a bit of a rough ride; they rarely are smooth, easy or the content just pleasant. While they might leave us with a sense of unease they also stimulate us to consider more deeply the underlying questions and issues that the author raises. Are they a reflection of contemporary reality or, at minimum, of certain aspects of it? Very likely. Among the quotes on the book's back cover, one (by the National Post) reads: "...There is a searing honesty here about humankind's inability or unwillingness, to make an effort at connection, but the author's own humanity rescues her vision from descending into despair or nihilism." I couldn't have stated my reaction any better. If you look for romantic love or happiness, you will not easily find it in any of these stories.

One story from the collection has remained etched in my mind more than any of the others, titled, Mr. Hope. It is written from the perspective of a young female teacher, who, upon returning to her first school, is reliving intense childhood memories, among them her first encounters with her teacher, Mr. Hope. Lynn Coady exquisitely captures the feelings of a young girl, her anxieties but also her independent spirit. Interweaving the vividly reimagined child's perception with that of the hindsight of the adult looking back, the author tells a story that not only conveys narrative tension and inner drama, she convincingly brings out the girl's emotional confusion and conflicts in a way that will, in some way or another, sound familiar to most readers.

Among the other stories, some characters stand out for me more than others, such as a nun in a hospital who applies her counselling to get an anorexic girl with a religious obsession to take "some food". The title story tackles another important and well-known subject: deep and lasting family strains going back decades that the female protagonist cannot shake off. However, a "reunion" demands a different response so many years later.

While all stories are written from the distance of a third person narrator, they do often cut through the surface of the characters' 'normalcy' and expose what lies underneath. Coady's stories focus more on the women's mental state of mind than that of their male counterparts. There is, for example, the young bride who has discovered that "twenty-something" sex is no longer adequate (or never was) and her new partner is a willing if somewhat reluctant participant in the new experiments. Coady pinpoints many of the ambitions and anxieties that younger women experience, whether in private or professional life. She is an astute observer of people and scenarios and her depiction of her central characters is not without a sense of humour or irony.

Canadian Lynn Coady, is with HELLGOING the recent winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2013 and a finalist for the Writers Trust Fiction Prize.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say that I'm a fan of short stories that make me say "What???" when I reach the end, which is exactly what most of these stories did. Too much is left unsaid to satisfy my curiosity.

[Steven Langdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russell Smith has called short stories "an intricate, puzzling and hugely rewarding art form" -- and this dazzling book from Lynn Coady proves his point. The judges for Canada's Giller Prize for fiction have chosen it for the 2013 list of finalists, so many readers will come to share the author's widely diverse characters and their memorably unusual worlds of experience.

Coady opens a window to an unsettled and changing set of contemporary lives, where gender relations are in flux, people are seeing themselves in new ways as their age shifts and perceptions are being confronted by experience. From Kim who decides it is time to choose to fall in love with her younger fellow musician Hart in "Body Condom," to Samantha in "Dogs in Clothes" who somehow must balance a parent's heart operation, a lover's emotional assaults and a client's grating demands, the result is rich insight into the complexity of modern life.

There is no formula in these stories. Some are short, giving a vignette of changing perceptions (as with the title piece, "Hellgoing," that sees a sister and brother shifting their views of each other. ) Some have more narrative, like "Body Condom." Most have main female characters, but there are also male points of view (as in "The Natural Elements. ") What is common to all the stories, though, is a freshness of perspective and a blunt lucidity of expression that make this book live.

I enjoyed this book -- though as Russell Smith would warn, the very diversity of the stories left me puzzled. It certainly deserves its Giller nomination. With four first rate novels nominated, however, I would look to one of them as the overall winner.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a short book (about 120 pages), a collection of short stories which won this year's Giller Prize. Was this the best Canadian fiction book this year? I can only conclude I am missing something that the jury saw, as I would have preferred many others on their long list.The stories were believable but the characters fell flat,and the stories had no resolution that I could see. Not my kind of book.

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find myself very frustrated trying to rate this book.

Lynn Coady is a terrific writer. Her sentences are beautiful to read. If that is sufficient to win the Giller Prize, then I will concede to that.

However, I found it very irritating to be dropped into the middle of each story with virtually no background information about the characters and the situation and no resolution of the conflict at the end. I guess I am just too old-fashioned in that I like a story to have a beginning, a middle and an end. I do not mind when an author expects me to do some of the work - that is just fine - but I need more clues to get the job done than Coady seems willing to give.

I found "Mr. Hope" to be particularly frustrating. The description of this creepy teacher is very vivid and effective but there are just too many unanswered questions in this story. The main character abruptly "mentions" that she "got pregnant" in Grade Nine. There is no mention of who got her that way. Was is the boy she had a crush on for so many years? Was it Mr. Hope? Or was it someone else altogether? You can't say that it does not matter because she focuses on these two male characters throughout the story.

So I will give "Hellgoing" 3 stars because of the writing quality but I really feel quite grumpy about it.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light."
-- Groucho Marx

An alcoholic writer with commitment issues, a nun sickened by the sight of an anorexic teen and a middle-aged woman manipulated by her young lover.

They aren't your typical heroes, but you will find yourself rooting for them in "Hellgoing."

The Giller Prize-winning short story collection boasts a smorgasbord of emotionally-stunted characters caught in periods of transition in their lives.

While each of the nine stories stands on its own, author Lynn Coady does a masterful job of tying them together through common themes of escapism, forgiveness, and sometimes, even redemption.

Coady's strength is -- and has always been, for longtime fans -- her ability to transfix readers quickly. Her precise writing always packs a punch emotionally, drawing in readers with the depth of her characters. Even if you, as a reader, can't relate to a specific situation, you can always appreciate the emotional richness of the characters at hand.

In "Hellgoing," Coady has highlighted the true beauty of the fallen, the broken and the weakened, often cast as 'losers' in the real world. She has cut through the fiction of perfection in our world to expose how we are all struggling in one form or another.

[Dina Desveaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first two stories in one go. At the end of the title story of Coady's Giller prize winning collection, Hellgoing, I noticed the walls felt like they were closing in. My space began feeling less spacious, hovering towards claustrophobic.

The strength in Coady’s stories resides in impeccably constructed sentences, in characters we secretly fear will resonate with hidden aspects of ourselves, and in the brilliant interweaving of present despair with reimagined perceptions of those past events, those moments of stolen innocence, that haunt us through life.

Coady’s characters—a cast of mostly broken women, what another reviewer aptly called a cast of despair—are dogged by regrets, resentments and obsessions. Several of these bitter inner conflicts reminded me of waking nightmares that gather flesh, albeit thin and yes, restrained flesh. Incapable of escaping the past, these women marinate (Coady's word) in their despair. And we watch them—submerged—surrendering to acid vernaculars.

When I finished reading my favourite story in the collection, Take This and Eat It, I felt the walls pressing in closer.

[4.4 stars]

[Barbara Sibbald · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't mind an ambiguous ending. I mean I think readers should do some of the imaginary lifting. However, many of the stories in this award-winning collection left me scratching my head. "Wireless" for example. And "Clear Skies." Maybe I'm out of the short-story reading habit, but then again I never have this problem with Munro's stories.
In contrast, the title story has a poignant and resonant ending.

Otherwise, this is an enjoyable read with more than little humour.
A couple of stories, including "Dogs in clothes," provide an insiders view of publishing -- and by and large it ain't pretty. Pretenders to the throne prance about uttering words of wisdom that everyone pretends to comprehend.

"Take this and eat it" is likewise highly entertaining, if only for its nun without empathy main character.

My Favourite? The concluding "Mr Hope." Brilliant.

[Kiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what did I think. I thought things started slow. Then I started getting into it, and then a story whacked me over the head with how good it was ("An Otherworld"), then I relaxed into full-on Coady love. She is among the best I've ever read when it comes to writing uncomfortableness: there is a barely restrainable laugh-out-loudness about her scenes and characters' thoughts as deadpan as they are. There's lots of pain in here, but *such* a refusal to wallow in it. I saw Coady read this fall so I hear her voice in my head in every story, and it is an addictive voice. Dry as burnt paper and sardonic as all hell, yet quietly, hugely compassionate. "An Otherworld" and "Body Condom" were my faves. Tens, not even fives, for these.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was compulsively readable, an instant cure for the literary drudgery of plodding through "The Orenda" last week. I finished "Hellgoing" in a matter of hours, with all my faculties and my sense of humour still intact.

My favourite stories in the collection were "Mr. Hope" and "Clear Skies", ones that I look forward to returning to in the future, as I think they'll only become better experiences on subsequent readings.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written character sketches, but that's about it. I know that the short story form comes in a lot of different styles and flavours, but there is almost no 'story' in the stories in Hellgoing.

It is becomming clear to me why the jury for the Giller Award shortlisted this and the others. They went with books that have gorgeously constucted sentences at the expense of all else.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read, in which the short stories don’t have any endings. You’re reading along, following the plot (although there are ambiguous monuments,along the way) and suddenly it ends! There aren't conclusions. Therefore I would think I missed something, re-trace my steps and then realize....nope there isn't anything-more written...

[THE TORONTO QUARTERLY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi, Everyone! My final interview for 2013 is with this years Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Lynn Coady as we discuss her winning short story collection, Hellgoing (House of Anansi, 2013). Read it now on my TTQ Blog. http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fucking loved this book. It's genius.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

? going

[Erin Kernohan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really like it, but I am still trying to work out what I didn't like about it... because I don't really like leaving things at just "I didn't like it."

Hellgoing is a series of vignettes of contemporary life. Themes include both timeless and modern afflictions of the human condition including love, lust, aging parents, friendship, alienation, self-esteem, faith, faithlessness, self-harm, etc.

With this laundry list, you would think that would make for some juicy story telling. Unfortunately, it doesn't. The stories are actually very bland. The characters are privileged and vain. While privileged and vain people can certainly suffer from inner turmoil, I didn't find their inner turmoil all that concerning.

There were a few moments that did grab me. In "Dogs in Clothes" the main character's texting smacks of the poor phone etiquette and chronic "connectedness" that we bemoan as the downfall of society, until the last few emotional texts cause her to pocket her phone and retreat into the world around her. In "Take This and Eat It" an exchange between a nun and an anorexic patient does some interesting exploration of faith and faithlessness. The darkly comedic "An Otherworld" can be related to by anyone who wishes they could befall an accident to avoid a situation they don't want to deal with. Finally, the titular "Hellgoing" is an endearing story of dealing with an aged parent, but the vanity of the main character becomes frustrating.

The book is well written. I like Lynn Coady's writing style. However, I found the stories and characters in Hellgoing tiresome and forgettable.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a bit unfair to make the Alice Munro comparison. "Hey, Canadian! Writes short stories!" There is one similiarity; Both tend to have ambiguous endings, unresolved plots. Yet where Munro has a structure, Coady drops several of these stories right off the cliff edge. (But maybe that's what the CanLit and Giller people like these days?)

Lynn Coady caught my attention a few years back with Saints of Big Harbour. Canadian small town gothic, it had been done, but there was enough in that novel to keep me reading. The short story collection Hellgoing on the other hand is more difficult. Many of Coady's main characters here are unsympathetic. Grumble grumble..they go through life. Little peeves turn to disgruntlement turn to rage. Coady does have some wonderful little bits of phrasing throughout though, enough to keep the pages turning.

"The Otherworld", "The Natural Elements" (the only male-centred story) and "Body Condom" stood out for me. Several others including the title story didn't have as much appeal. Even in the stories that I preferred, it was more about small episodes and Coady's description of internal monologues during awkward situations. Despite the sawed-off endings there was some compelling writing here.

Sure enough there it was today, in the books section at Target. A Giller prize gets a book out there...

[Una Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because it won the Giller prize, is Canadian and I was curious. Sadly, it did not live up to my expectations.

I found it very hard to read and gave up after four stories. I am surprised it won a great award because I felt, although it was written in the redneck/neo rustic/swamp style that is so popular these days,it had very little literary merit or readibility. If you want to immerse yourself on neo rustic hipster lit, this collection is for you. It has plenty of cusswords, alcohol, beer, bars, flannel and cliched, appropriately downward themes. But none of the stories or charactors resonate, touch, inspire, move or even interest. It is all style and no substance and the fact it won the Giller prize is bad news for really talented writers and the entire publishing world.

I was hopeful about one of Ms. Coady stories, titled Dog. expecting at least a little heart and soul that dogs inspire in many great writers but unfortunately the title was just a literary metaphor and the story was filled with more of the authors boring, unlikable charactors and themes.

I wanted to give this book one star but I gave the author the benefit of the doubt and awarded her a second star for the stories I didn't read. Hopefully for those who read her books, there is something worthwhile in those.

[Michelle Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

All right, call me stupid. It won't be the first time. I loved Lynn Coady's writing. Her range of characters, the dialogue, the situations - all of it is flawless and quite often jaw-dropping. For that, this book deserved 5 stars. But I have to say, in every single one of these nine stories, I could not for the life of me understand her decision about how to end them. Every ending felt random. Every story ended up frustrating me.

Obviously, she's the one with the Giller so she must know something I don't about how to end a story. I sure wish I knew what it was, though. I found myself repeatedly scratching my head in bewilderment. What? Don't we get to find out X? You're really going to leave us HERE of all places? In the end, I was disappointed by the 'build me up just to let me down' feeling I was left with after every story. I wonder if these stories suffered from being worked too hard.

I'm definitely going to read more of her work. I put my dissatisfaction here down to reader failure and, well, maybe stupidity on my part. The truth hurts, but there it is.

[Carmen Ballard · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Hellgoing" by Lynn Coady it's a collection of short stories and even though this book won the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize it just wasn't what I was expecting. I was hoping for an enjoyable read; however, I just couldn't connect with any of these stories. By the time I was getting into a story, it ended, which made me say "what? And left me with many questions. I like stories with a beginning, an end, a plot to link them and characters that I can relate to and understand. These stories, to me, seem like fragments of a story. I have to rate it ** and give credit to the author for portraying conflicts between compassion and self-protection in characters that perhaps will resonate with hidden aspects of ourselves. Also interweaving the present despair with reimagined perceptions of past events, and those moments of stolen innocence that haunt us through life. The concept in these stories is there and I got it. I was just expecting a better ending in all of them.

[Dessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lynn Coady is breaking my heart. Lynn Coady is cracking me open and putting her hands in my chest cavity. Lynn Coady is performing brain surgery and making me answer questions while she digs around in my grey matter. Lynn Coady is poking her fingers into my language center and my lymph notes and my ventricles. Lynn Coady is knitting me socks and they're too small and she knows it, and I'm going to wear them anyway, and when I take them off at the end of the day my feet are going to be tight and aching and I'll say, "Thank you, Lynn Coady, for the socks." I want to make Lynn Coady proud. I want to be Lynn Coady. Lynn Coady, why are you doing this to me? (Next week I have to do a seminar on this collection and I have no idea what I'm going to say.)

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of these stories are a bit mysterious and hard to pin down. They end suddenly, or change direction completely in the last few sentences. Half of them I had to go right back and read over again to figure out how it ended up where it did. Luckily, they are all worth re-reading and Lynn Coady is worth trusting - she's not just messing with my expectations for fun. There's always more threads and meanings than I realized, and always a reason the story refused to go where I expected it to. They are a little terrifying though, with the constant feeling that the narrator has everything wrong and there is no way to tell what's right, and no hope for a tidy realization and wrap-up.

[Sandra Grant · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worse books I have read. Probably because of the people the author portrays. All with problems with no resolutions or even a glimmer of hope for any change. I found the stories depressing and boring. I have compassion for the characters but cannot understand why the author would want to write such a book. This is an award winning book so obviously I am missing something.

I finished the book because it was one of the books for my book club. Otherwise, I would have given it away.

[Melinda Worfolk · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I hadn't been reading this for book club, I wouldn't have persisted past the first story; however, I kept going and was rewarded. There were a few I really liked--"Clear Skies" and "Body Condom" in particular--and a few I thought were not stellar but pretty good. I like Lynn Coady's prose, but her story structure is puzzling to me sometimes. I have no problem with ambiguous endings or a lack of closure, but multiple times in this collection, I turned the page and was surprised to see the story was over.