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Heart Breaker
From the brilliant mind of Governor General’s Award finalist and author Claudia Dey, a mother’s disappearance in a remote northern territory sets off an examination of what led to that fateful day
In an imagined remote northern territory in 1985, an unknown woman falls out of an open car door into the arms of The Heavy, a man as lonely as he is quiet. When she disappears fifteen years later, Billie Jean is still an outsider in this town of fewer than four hundred people. The attempt to trace her movements before she disappeared reveals the mysteries of the human heart. The story is told from three points of view: in the poignant voice of her daughter, fifteen-year-old Pony Darlene, a girl struggling with being a teen in the middle of nowhere; the clear-eyed observations of her beloved canine companion, to whom she cannot tell a lie; and the popular, secretive Supes, the teenage boy longing to be average who is her lover.
Heartbreaker is a storytelling tour de force about the lies we tell ourselves and others, and how the truth will always find its way out no matter what the consequences.
In an imagined remote northern territory in 1985, an unknown woman falls out of an open car door into the arms of The Heavy, a man as lonely as he is quiet. When she disappears fifteen years later, Billie Jean is still an outsider in this town of fewer than four hundred people. The attempt to trace her movements before she disappeared reveals the mysteries of the human heart. The story is told from three points of view: in the poignant voice of her daughter, fifteen-year-old Pony Darlene, a girl struggling with being a teen in the middle of nowhere; the clear-eyed observations of her beloved canine companion, to whom she cannot tell a lie; and the popular, secretive Supes, the teenage boy longing to be average who is her lover.
Heartbreaker is a storytelling tour de force about the lies we tell ourselves and others, and how the truth will always find its way out no matter what the consequences.
Unknown Binding
First published August 21, 2018
About the author
Claudia Dey
10 books271 followersClaudia Dey is a bestselling novelist, playwright and essayist.
Dey’s third novel, DAUGHTER, out now (FSG and Doubleday), is an Instant National Bestseller, named a New York Times Fall Fiction pick, an Elle Magazine Book of the Year, a Lit Hub Unmissable Fall Book, and A Globe and Mail Autumn Best read. Claudia and the novel have been featured in Interview Magazine, BOMB, Document Journal, Hazlitt, The Walrus, and more. The New York Times calls DAUGHTER, “A darkly glittering tale…beautiful and piercing.”
Heartbreaker, Dey’s second novel, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book and Northern Lit Awards, named a best book of the year by multiple publications, and is being adapted for television. Her debut, Stunt, was a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award. Her plays have been produced internationally, and nominated for the Governor General’s, Dora and Trillium Book Awards. Dey has worked as a horror film actress, a guest artist at the National Theatre School, and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. Her fiction, interviews, and essays have appeared in The Paris Review (“Mothers As Makers of Death”), McSweeney’s, Lit Hub, Hazlitt, The Believer, and elsewhere.
Dey’s third novel, DAUGHTER, out now (FSG and Doubleday), is an Instant National Bestseller, named a New York Times Fall Fiction pick, an Elle Magazine Book of the Year, a Lit Hub Unmissable Fall Book, and A Globe and Mail Autumn Best read. Claudia and the novel have been featured in Interview Magazine, BOMB, Document Journal, Hazlitt, The Walrus, and more. The New York Times calls DAUGHTER, “A darkly glittering tale…beautiful and piercing.”
Heartbreaker, Dey’s second novel, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book and Northern Lit Awards, named a best book of the year by multiple publications, and is being adapted for television. Her debut, Stunt, was a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award. Her plays have been produced internationally, and nominated for the Governor General’s, Dora and Trillium Book Awards. Dey has worked as a horror film actress, a guest artist at the National Theatre School, and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. Her fiction, interviews, and essays have appeared in The Paris Review (“Mothers As Makers of Death”), McSweeney’s, Lit Hub, Hazlitt, The Believer, and elsewhere.
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