All Saints

Description

Shortlisted for the 2014 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
Longlisted for the 2014 Frank O’Connor Award

In a linked collection that presents the secret small tragedies of an Anglican congregation struggling to survive, All Saints delves into the life of Simon, the Reverend, and the lives of his parishioners: Miss Alice Vipond, a refined and elderly schoolteacher, incarcerated for a horrendous crime; a woman driven to extreme anxiety by an affair she cannot end; a receptionist, and her act of improbable generosity; a writer making peace with her divorce. Effortlessly written and candidly observed, All Saints is a moving collection of tremendous skill, whose intersecting stories illuminate the tenacity and vulnerability of modern-day believers.

Praise for All Saints

“Miller’s genius, like that of Alice Munro, is wringing suspense—and poignancy—from the quotidian … Plots and characters link in haunting and astounding ways. As a collection, the stories reflect the power and purpose of all communities, ecclesiastical or otherwise: read like a novel, they offer multi-faceted perspective and illumination. The result is a Canadian classic. If this book doesn’t get a Giller prize nod, something is wrong.”—Maclean’s Magazine

“Miller, who has previously published collections of essays, short stories and a novel, has an ease of style that produces elegant turns of phrase … The overlapping narratives weave the stories and recurring themes together. Love, faith, marriage, sex, death, aging, mental illness and the meaning of community are all explored with dignity.”—Publishers Weekly

“Expertly crafted short stories that perform an impressive story arc and engage the reader’s fascinated attention from first page to last, All Saints is an extraordinary anthology that documents author K.D. Miller as an impressively gifted and original writer … highly recommended for personal reading lists and community library collections.”—Reviewer’s Choice, The Midwest Book Review

“Miller brings the wisdom and deft touch of a seasoned expert to her new collection … Her characters are complex, ambivalent, inconsistent, flawed, and tragically human. Like Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, Miller’s new book walks the line between novel and linked stories, reshaping each genre in the process. All Saints is the work of a writer with a confident voice and a clear vision.”—Quill & Quire, Starred Review

“Miller is firing on all cylinders here … [her] stories are tightly interwoven, their connections subtle and teasing.”—The National Post

“Balanced and organic … The vividly rendered characters populating All Saints resemble a theatre’s ensemble cast … Every piece, each life, fits together.”—The Fiddlehead

“From the first page of All Saints, readers know they’re in the hands of a true writer. With language both rich and restrained, images both precise and evocative, Miller entices us into the lives of people who all share a connection to an Anglican church being slowly deserted. Thanks to the subtle and intricate structure of the collection, the individual stories knit into a whole, achieving the effect of a novel, offering portraits of individuals and their tenuous community that claim a permanent place in our minds, and leaving us grateful for K.D. Miller’s artistry.”—Neil Bissoondath, Helen Humphreys, and George Murray, 2014 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Judges

“Fictional places have been mostly secular of late: the home, the bar, the workplace. Standing at the centre of K.D. Miller’s touching and intimate collection of linked stories is, unfashionably, a church. All Saints is not just the setting for the habits and rituals of this motley group—parishioners, priest, passersby—but the central image that gives these stories their poignancy. As obsolescence threatens the church, it also puts in peril the connections each character has to others at the very time the world so badly needs human connections. All Saints is a moving and soulful book.”—Caroline Adderson

“All Saints is infused with humour, a surprising degree of eroticism, and an uncompromising eye for human fallibility and frailty.”—That Shakespearean Rag