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The Whole Beautiful World
The Whole Beautiful World
The Whole Beautiful World

The Whole Beautiful World

Stories
ISBN: 9781927366622
$20.00

Original, witty, and subtle, these stories feature characters who must navigate life in a small town, and will appeal to fans of Miriam Toews and Kathleen Winter.

This collection of beautifully crafted short stories features complex characters whose internal struggles manifest in their most intimate relationships, told by a writer with a compassionate eye.

A narrator watches her social sphere deteriorate after her boyfriend’s rough-housing leads to his best friend’s tragic paralysis. Childhood sweethearts, finally united later in life, find that they are not the soulmates they believed themselves to be. After her mother becomes depressed after a miscarriage, a daughter takes on the role of caregiver.

Set in fictional small rural towns, these stories explore young people who grow up against a religious backdrop, mothers who baulk against society’s imposed identities, and characters who explore their individual roles within their families as they navigate sexuality, suffering, and shame. These narrators are blunt and sometimes obsessive, but bravely optimistic as they strive to be the best versions of themselves.

As her characters struggle to discern deception from reality, using their limited resources to parse charm and charisma from credibility, Kuipers understated style is full of dark wit and detailed observation.

More About the Book

Kuipers' light touch and eye for telling details will keep the reader wanting more. A collection of delicate sketches that mark Kuipers as a writer of promise.

Kuipers recovers for us the intimate world of youth on the lip of adulthood: their loneliness, self-consciousness, spiritual longings, self-castigations, dreams. Trapped in poverty or their own bigotry, adults mostly fail them woefully, but this is not a dark book. The Whole Beautiful World is written with compassion and a resonant wisdom.

- Rosemary Sullivan, author of Stalin's Daughter

In subtle, understated prose, yet with deep compassion, these stories reveal the private hopes, secret loves, and stinging regrets that complicate the lives of young girls and women.

- Hugh Cook, author of Heron River

Published:

October 10, 2017


Format:

Paperback / softback Trade paperback (US)


Page Count:

208


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