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Avalanche: Stories
MP3 CD Format
"Things used to be easier, but even in those carefree days, the rules were in place for a reason. And that reason so we can all agree. So we can all have the same standard applied across the board. So there is no special treatment, which no one should receive. This is why we need the rules."
The stories in Avalanche combine humor with an earnest examination and indictment of white entitlement, guilt, shame, and disorientation in the wake of waking up to the reality of racism. Focusing on the perspective of white, cis, straight, and mostly middle-aged and middle-class characters, this collection shines a light on the obliviousness of white privilege, the violence of polite, quiet racism hiding just under the surface of mundane, everyday situations, and the anguished flailing of "well-intentioned white ladies" desperate to confirm their essential goodness at all costs. Westhead writes with compassion and empathy for both her frustrating and frustrated white protagonists and the racialized characters who encounter them, and uses humor not to comfortably distance white readers from the harmful behavior of her self-absorbed protagonists, but to pull them in close to recognize--and reckon with--those familiar parts of themselves, and to become more aware of the insidious systems of white supremacy at work behind the scenes.
"Things used to be easier, but even in those carefree days, the rules were in place for a reason. And that reason so we can all agree. So we can all have the same standard applied across the board. So there is no special treatment, which no one should receive. This is why we need the rules."
The stories in Avalanche combine humor with an earnest examination and indictment of white entitlement, guilt, shame, and disorientation in the wake of waking up to the reality of racism. Focusing on the perspective of white, cis, straight, and mostly middle-aged and middle-class characters, this collection shines a light on the obliviousness of white privilege, the violence of polite, quiet racism hiding just under the surface of mundane, everyday situations, and the anguished flailing of "well-intentioned white ladies" desperate to confirm their essential goodness at all costs. Westhead writes with compassion and empathy for both her frustrating and frustrated white protagonists and the racialized characters who encounter them, and uses humor not to comfortably distance white readers from the harmful behavior of her self-absorbed protagonists, but to pull them in close to recognize--and reckon with--those familiar parts of themselves, and to become more aware of the insidious systems of white supremacy at work behind the scenes.
1 pages, Audio CD
Published May 20, 2025
About the author
Jessica Westhead
14 books25 followersJESSICA WESTHEAD is a Toronto writer and editor, and one of the short-story-loving masterminds behind YOSS (Year of the Short Story). Her fiction has appeared in major literary journals in Canada and the United States, including Geist, The New Quarterly, and Indiana Review. Her novel Pulpy & Midge was published in 2007 by Coach House Books. Her short story collection And Also Sharks, published by Cormorant Books in 2011, was on the Globe and Mail’s Globe 100 list of the best books of 2011 and was a finalist for the 2012 Danuta Gleed Literary Award. She was shortlisted for the 2009 CBC Literary Awards, and one of her stories was selected for the 2011 Journey Prize anthology.
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