The Case of Lena S. Paperback by David Bergen

Product Details

• Publisher: Emblem Editions (2003-09-02)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 296 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780771011870
• Item Weight: 294.84 grams
• Dimensions: 10.67 x 13.34 x 1.27 cm

The Case of Lena S. follows the life, loves, and coming-of-age of sixteen-year-old Mason Crowe during a year in which he will learn what it truly means to be in the world. At the centre of the novel is Lena, a troubled girl who has “chosen” Mason and will teach him something of desire and despair. Impulsive, provocative, vulnerable, and sad, Lena becomes haunting for Mason in ways he does not always understand. We meet Mason’s first “love,” an older girl destined for an arranged marriage; his mother, who takes a lover; and a wise and erudite blind man with a voyeuristic streak, to whom Mason reads. Playful, and with deadpan humour, the novel brilliantly captures the yearnings of youth, as well as the tantalizing possibilities and the confounding absurdities that sometimes lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships.

About the Author

David Bergen is the author of three highly acclaimed novels: A Year of Lesser (1996), a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award; See the Child (1999); and, most recently, The Case of Lena S. (2002), winner of the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. He is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Sitting Opposite My Brother (1993), which was a finalist for the Manitoba Book of the Year. A section from The Case of Lena S. was chosen for Toronto Life’s Summer Fiction issue in 2000. Bergen won the CBC Literary Prize for Fiction the same year.

David Bergen lives in Winnipeg.