Light Lifting

Shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor award and winner of an atlantic book award, Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited debut offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and fragile understanding. Colm Tóibín says they “contain a rare kind of truthfulness,” while Bonnie Jo Campbell calls MacLeod “a literary rock star.” With Giller and commonwealth prize shortlists to its credit, Light Lifting has become necessary reading for short story lovers the world over. 

“His brilliant debut collection, Light Lifting, is engrossing, thrilling and ultimately satisfying: each story has the weight of a novel. The young canadian writer is already winning plaudits in his own country. He can expect acclaim far beyond ... The choice of words is spare, simple and unaffected, and the rhythm is perfect ... Stunning work. Mr. Macleod’s next contribution will be eagerly anticipated.”--The Economist