DIEU N'EST PAS LA AUJOURD'HUI

by Francine Cunningham

Campées dans des lieux inusités qui vont du bureau de Dieu à une boutique érotique, de l’appartement décrépit d’un très vieux couple à la roulotte qu’habite une jeune Autochtone héritière d’un don particulier, les nouvelles de Francine Cunningham nous plongent au cœur de la nature humaine, de ses troublantes contradictions et d’une quête de rédemption qui se manifeste souvent là où on ne l’attend pas. Un recueil étonnant, porté par une écriture sensible et audacieuse.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Indigenous, Literary Fiction

Paperback

Published November 15, 2024

About the author

Francine Cunningham is an award-winning Indigenous writer, artist and educator. Her debut book of poems On/Me (Caitlin Press) was nominated for 2020 BC and Yukon Book Prize, a 2020 Indigenous Voices Award, and The Vancouver Book Award.

She is a winner of The Indigenous Voices Award in the 2019 Unpublished Prose Category and of The Hnatyshyn Foundation’s REVEAL Indigenous Art Award. Her fiction has appeared in The Best Canadian Short Stories 2021, in Grain Magazine as the 2018 Short Prose Award winner, on The Malahat Review’s Far Horizon’s Prose shortlist, in Joyland Magazine, The Puritan Magazine and more.

Her debut book of short stories ‘God Isn’t Here Today’ is out now with Invisible Publishing and is a book of Indigenous speculative fiction and horror. You can find out more about her at www.francinecunningham.ca

Reviews

[Barb reads......it ALL! · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are moments of brilliance in this collection, but overall, I was a little disappointed.

[Karley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of stories. I really enjoyed the mix of formats in this one; it kept me engaged. There were a couple of stories in here I didn’t love as much as others, but that is the case with most of the short story collections I have read, and though the lemon and lavender scent “through line” was a nice little addition, there were some cases where fitting that in seemed a stretch. I quite enjoyed this as a whole though and would reread many of these stories!

[lostcupofstars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review on StoryGraph

[Marie Labrousse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ratages, regrets ou remords : des nouvelles aux airs d'esquisses inachevées, mais pourtant profondément troublantes voire bouleversantes - avec une pointe de lavande ou de citron au détour de chaque nouvelle qui ne camoufle pas la noirceur pour autant.

[Nikita Gabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book changed me honestly.
It's been sitting on the shelf at my favorite local bookstore, and finally, I decided to buy it. I think it was the right time for me to read it. I devoured it within hours.

There's so many themes that hit me so hard. Loss of a mother, heartbreaking loneliness, simplicity in life, love, not depriving yourself of adventures, the beauty of the prairies, spirituality, and so much more. I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that maybe I don't hate the prairies and my small silly city, that there's so much beauty here, and the glimpses of those themes in this book spoke to me in a beautiful, subtle background way. The loss of my mother is still so raw to, and those themes really shook me nasty, I loved it.

I sobbed a few times during this book, too. Mickey's Bar hit especially hard. It was so beautiful.

I like the variety between stories, how raw it is, how unforgiving real life is, it's captured well here.

Idk, thank you for writing this book! It found me at the right time, and I don't think I'll be able to get it out of my head 🥹

[MAPS - Booktube]

Une première nouvelle coup de poing.
Une suite plus confuse.
J’ai pris une pause de 72 jours pour reprendre après la première nouvelle malgré que j’en avais lu 86 pages

Des moments qui restent, mais Beaucoup trop de personnages pour moi. Des moments difficiles, des réalités ardues, mais ça manquait de cohésion et de raison d’être.

[Magalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai vraiment aimé lire ce recueil de nouvelles. Les personnages dans chacune des histoires sont réels et imparfaits, mais parfaitement eux-mêmes et humains. Je suis bien contente de l'avoir pris sur la table de suggestions de lectures autochtones à ma bibliothèque.

[Dan_Bo]

I don’t know how to rate this book, so I won’t. I just want to share some thoughts.

The main character in this book is the scent of lemon.

I got this book at the Kwe event in Quebec city because I wanted to support indigenous writers and I really like collection of short stories. Usually I like to read book in their original language if it’s english or french but I bought this one in french without realizing it was a translation, and honestly the translator did a fantastic job so I’m really not too mad about it.

I have mixed feelings about this one in particular. On one hand, the stories here are mostly dark, depressing and trashy, and I used to love and seek that in books at some point in my life, but I realized reading this book that the feelings the emulate are no longer as appealing to me. On the other hand, the stories are fascinating and the tragedy of them feels so real. They are imaginative and don’t tell you everything, often leaving a lot of space for the reader to wonder what would have happened next.

Overall very worthy reading experience that however leaves me in need of something a bit more hopeful and fluffy.

[Aly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Elle avait toujours aimé parler d'eux. Lire à leur sujet. Et visionner des vidéos YouTube où des hommes s'égosillent à propos des extraterrestres prêts à nous envahir. Mais je n'y connais pas grand-chose. Pourquoi les extraterrestres s'intéresseraient-ils à une planète pourrie pleine de monde pourri ? Sauf s'il venaient pour les pingouins. Personnellement, je traverserais l'univers au grand complet juste pour voir des pingouins se dandiner, pas vous?"

Un recueil de nouvelles savoureuses, même quand c'est plutôt troublant. L'autrice nous convie à de surprenants univers surnaturels ou mystiques. On a parfois l'impression d'être en pleine fable.

J'ai eu une préférence pour les nouvelles qui duraient plus d'une page ou deux et traitez-moi de fleur bleue si ça vous chante mais j'aurais aimé qu'au moins une de ces histoires ait une fin joyeuse. Malgré tout, on va du rire au dégoût, en passant par l'enthousiasme, l'étonnement et parfois un brin d'appréhension.

En d'autres termes, ce recueil c'est comme de la sauce piquante.

[SkywalkerSyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a solid collection of short stories but I 'Mickeys Bar' was a definite stand-out for me. I found it eerie and haunting, and yet somehow so peaceful.

[maudie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 - interesting and enjoyable, graphic

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inconsistent at best. A couple 4s but mostly 2s for me.

[Jackie Tsaur]

This book is a series of stories that resemble weird dreams I’ve had that I forget after being awake for a whole 10 seconds.

[Kathryn Mockler · Rating 5 out of 5]

7 Tragicomic Books That I Love: https://49thshelf.com/Blog/2023/10/02...

[AneMus · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

just a really excellent short story collection. had so much fun with all of them in different ways.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed her creativity and imagination. Very original stories, some quite deep with truthful and authentic characters. Some stories I will never forget.

[Paige Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories. Some good, others I skipped

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 stars

There are parts of Francine Cunningham’s debut collection, God Isn’t Here Today, that are incredibly strong. The title story is one of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time. It is moving, and thought-provoking. Mickey’s Bar is a wonderful tale of death and strange connections. In Remembrance is fascinating, and unravels beautifully; I would have read a whole novel about this old couple and their funeral business. Thirteen Steps is an interesting take on a death row inmate’s final meal.

But, this is a huge collection. With over 20 stories and poems, this is a very ambitious publication. And I feel like while there is some unbelievably good work here, the quality is not consistent.

However, Cunningham is firmly on my radar as a writer to watch, and I’m excited to see which worlds she creates next.

[Shantell Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Content warning: suicide, substance abuse, self-harm, sexual harassment

Francine Cunningham is an award-winning poet and author. She is the winner of the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award and Grain Magazine’s 2018 Short Forms Fiction contest. God Isn’t Here Today is her debut collection of short fiction, and it delves into the speculative realms, frequently dipping into horror with a dark literary touch. It has been longlisted for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize.

Each of the stories is quite different from the other, but many are connected by themes of death and transformation and a fragrant throughline of lemon and lavender. The death of a barman brings life to others. A hunting expedition becomes a death sentence. A dead artist becomes an artistic medium full of love. A meet-cute in a porn shop turns ugly. A pleasure ghost gets a new assignment. The stories contain a distinct viscerality: hemoglobin and skin grafts, fantasies of rough sex and bondage, ice cream melting down forearms, and a DIY trepanation.

The stand-out stories for me include the eponymous story, a surreal tale of a young man seeking audience with God in an unoccupied office. Instead of finding God, he finds other people seeking God. It reminds me a bit of Waiting for Godot by way of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

I also enjoyed “Spectre Sex,” which imagines ghosts as working stiffs. The protagonist of this story is a sex worker who enjoys his job about as much as someone working in a dead-end cubicle farm enjoys theirs.

“Glitter Like Herpes” gives me a John Waters vibe. Michelle is an aging stripper who makes ends meet by stealing used panties from the other workers and selling them on the dark web. The seedy setting, the betrayal, and the climactic cat fight make me imagine this story acted out by Mink Stole and Divine.

“Mickey’s Bar” follows a deceased barman’s body parts as they bring parts of his personality into their organ recipients, and in return, their memories join with his.

Cunningham experiments with form in this collection. Some pieces are classic short stories, some are free verse, and some are hybrid works, such as “Thirteen Steps” which marches across the pages in paired columns of thirteen paragraphs. Cunningham has provided a musical playlist to accompany the stories in this collection, and the songs sing out the themes of each tale. https://www.francinecunningham.ca/pos...

God Isn’t Here Today may appeal to fans of Joshua Whitehead, Chuck Palahniuk, and the trash cinema of John Waters.

Thank you, Invisible Publishing, for a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

(Review originally published at https://www.cloudlakeliterary.ca/blog... )

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The details in this book are amazing. The contrast of smaller work against the longer pieces give the reader a breather especially for those of us who can get overwhelmed reading longer stories. I love that Francine includes aspects of Indigenous personalities without overdoing it such as certain words and personalities they have. I like the emphasis on scent throughout this book as well - gives the reader a familiar theme to hold on to.