Winner of the Governor General Award for Fiction, Elizabeth and After is a final parting gift from the talented Matt Cohen, delivering this haunting tale of love, loss, family and grief.
Ever since the death of his mother, Elizabeth McKelvey, Carl McKelvey has been away from his small-town home of West Gull for three years. When his father, William, steals a car and lands in the middle of Dead Swede Lake, Carl comes back home to pick up the pieces. But Carl's homecoming is anything but joyful, as he confronts the past he tried to run from: the guilt he holds over his role in his mother's death, his fractured relationship with his ex-wife Chrissy, and his daughter Lizzie, whom he hopes to reconcile and reconnect with. At the center of it all is Elizabeth, a woman whose death reveals secrets of her own.
NOMINEE
| 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
"Elizabeth and After constantly surprises with its compassion and generosity, and its luminous appreciation of landscape and community." -- Governor General's Award Juror's Citation
"A superb piece of storytelling." -- Saturday Night
"A mature, funny, engaging ... wonderful novel ... that nails you to the chair cushions (or bed pillows) from start to finish."-- The Edmonton Journal
"A novel with the power to remind readers why they read fiction in the first place ... It comes at age-old sorrow and joys from a new angle, and so serves as a reminder that the most astonishing of miracles is simply to be alive." -- Maclean's
Shortly before his death in December 1999, Matt Cohen won the Governor General’s Award for his novel Elizabeth and After and the Harbourfront Festival Prize in honour of his life as a writer. In 1998 he received the Toronto Arts Award for writing. He is the author of thirteen novels as well as poetry, short stories, books for children and works of translation from French into English.
View titles by Matt Cohen
Winner of the Governor General Award for Fiction, Elizabeth and After is a final parting gift from the talented Matt Cohen, delivering this haunting tale of love, loss, family and grief.
Ever since the death of his mother, Elizabeth McKelvey, Carl McKelvey has been away from his small-town home of West Gull for three years. When his father, William, steals a car and lands in the middle of Dead Swede Lake, Carl comes back home to pick up the pieces. But Carl's homecoming is anything but joyful, as he confronts the past he tried to run from: the guilt he holds over his role in his mother's death, his fractured relationship with his ex-wife Chrissy, and his daughter Lizzie, whom he hopes to reconcile and reconnect with. At the center of it all is Elizabeth, a woman whose death reveals secrets of her own.
NOMINEE
| 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Praise
"Elizabeth and After constantly surprises with its compassion and generosity, and its luminous appreciation of landscape and community." -- Governor General's Award Juror's Citation
"A superb piece of storytelling." -- Saturday Night
"A mature, funny, engaging ... wonderful novel ... that nails you to the chair cushions (or bed pillows) from start to finish."-- The Edmonton Journal
"A novel with the power to remind readers why they read fiction in the first place ... It comes at age-old sorrow and joys from a new angle, and so serves as a reminder that the most astonishing of miracles is simply to be alive." -- Maclean's
Author
Shortly before his death in December 1999, Matt Cohen won the Governor General’s Award for his novel Elizabeth and After and the Harbourfront Festival Prize in honour of his life as a writer. In 1998 he received the Toronto Arts Award for writing. He is the author of thirteen novels as well as poetry, short stories, books for children and works of translation from French into English.
View titles by Matt Cohen
