Heartbreaker

by Claudia Dey

On Sale: 08/21/2018

Enlarge Book Cover

Heartbreaker

by Claudia Dey

On Sale: 08/21/2018

Format:

Amazon Indigo

View More Retailers

Book Overview
Author Info

About the Book

A poignant new novel that combines humour and heartache, from the brilliant mind of Governor General’s Award finalist Claudia Dey

Seventeen years after falling from a stolen car into a remote northern town, Billie Jean Fontaine is still an outsider. She may follow the stifling rules of this odd place, but no one will forget that she came from elsewhere. When Billie Jean vanishes one cold October night in her bare feet and track suit with only her truck keys, those closest to her begin a frantic search. Her daughter, Pony, a girl struggling against being a teen in the middle of nowhere; her killer dog to whom she cannot tell a lie; her husband, The Heavy, a man haunted by his past; and the charismatic Supernatural, a teenage boy longing only to be average. Each holding a different piece of the puzzle, they must come together to understand the darkest secrets of their beloved, and lay bare the mysteries of the human heart.

With her luminous prose, wry humour and dead-on cultural observations, Claudia Dey has created a storytelling tour de force about what it means to love, no matter the consequences.

Critical Praise

“Heartbreaker is an incandescent flare of a novel—acrobatic, devastating, and wickedly funny. It is effortlessly sly and fresh in its language, and I loved it.” — Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure

A ”Most Anticipated” book in Publishers Weekly, The Millions, 49th Shelf and Quill & Quire
A “Buzz Book” in Chatelaine, Flare and Canadian Living —

“A whole-cloth, word-for-word triumph.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A mashup of “Stranger Things” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” — The Hollywood Reporter

“Heartbreaker is a dark star of a book, glittering with mordant humor and astonishing, seductive strangeness and grace. I am a giant fan of Claudia Dey’s wild brain.” — Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

“An enticing page-turner.” — Canadian Living

“Behold the virtuosity of Heartbreaker! Claudia Dey has a perfect ear and the sharpest eye. Her portrait of Pony Darlene Fontaine, and the strange world she inhabits, is devastating, unsparing and unforgettable.” — Miriam Toews, author of All My Puny Sorrows and A Complicated Kindness

“This book gave me chills all the way through...It convinced me that the deepest of human urges is the pull to find one’s true home—which lies in the hearts of just a few others. I floated in the perfection of its ending... I loved its every page.”
— Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?

“I was kidnapped by this novel. Original, alluring and memorable, Claudia Dey’s Heartbreaker will get under your skin. An electrifying story about buried pasts, dark secrets and dangerous loves that shimmers and sparks.”
— Iain Reid, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things

“Imagine a funnier, but more sinister, offspring of Peyton Place and Never Let Me Go, and you approximate the world of this stunning new novel. Claudia Dey’s beautiful, off-kilter music has been missing from our literary landscape for too long — a most welcome return.” — Michael Redhill, Giller prize-winning author of Bellevue Square, Consolation and Fidelity

“What a completely thrilling novel! In its story, people, vision, sentences and fervor—in its pure intelligence and unbridled bravery—it stands apart. With Heartbreaker, the literary landscape is forever changed.” — Barbara Gowdy, author of Little Sister

“Devoted, as I am, to the oddities of northern, remote lands, I could not put this book down. In turns, hilarious and harrowing, Heartbreaker’s icy exactitude is direct, disturbed and entirely splendid.” — Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark, Mr. Splitfoot and The Invention of Everything Else

“Heartbreaker makes high and hilarious art from the emotional pop-rocks and glittery junk of a certain way of being young. And vulnerable. Also, it has one of the most awesome dogs in literature. A thrillingly original, wholly spellbinding and luminous novel.” — Rivka Galchen, author of American Innovations

“This book is beautifully written, profoundly strange, a perfect balancing act of dark and light. Part thriller, part love story, part coming-of-age novel, it broke my heart and then put it back together again.” — Claire Cameron, author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal

“I want Van Halen to write the soundtrack and the Coen brothers to make the movie. It plays out as a vivid, tender, complex magic. A totally compulsive, singular and wild read. The people in this book are so alive, and the book itself feels unthinkably new.”
— Leslie Feist, musician