The Wagers Paperback by Sean Michaels

Product Details

• Publisher: Vintage Canada (2021-04-13)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 384 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780735278134
• Item Weight: 351.54 grams
• Dimensions: 7.99 x 5.19 x 0.97 cm

Scotiabank Giller-winner Sean Michaels' The Wagers is a deeply satisfying, wildly entertaining story of long odds, magical heists and the dizzying gamble of life. Where does luck come from? What is it worth? And how much of it do you need to be happy?

After fifteen years of open mics, aspiring comedian Theo Poitiris is still waiting for his big break--bicycling to the comedy club at night, stacking plums and cheeses at his family's grand and ramshackle supermarket by day. But when his girlfriend wanders halfway around the world searching for enlightenment, leaving him behind, and bolts from the blue strike both his mother and his young neice, Theo decides he's had enough of waiting for his luck to change.
     He turns away from the price of milk and the telling of funny stories into a shabby, beautiful, imaginary Montreal, where peacocks strut on street corners and gamblers bet on sunny days. In search of something bold and new, Theo goes to work for a mysterious association of sports-obsessed mathematicians, The Rabbit's Foot, which is turning probability into riches, and soon stumblies into the plots and plans of the vigilante No Name Gang, which steals luck from those who have taken more than their fair share.
     Bursting with sheer story-telling pleasure and stylish prose, The Wagers carries you along on wave after wave of invention--a literary motorcycle chase that soon has you wondering about the randomness of good fortune and all the ways we choose to wage our lives.

About the Author

SEAN MICHAELS is a novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in Stirling, Scotland, and raised in Ottawa, he eventually settled in Montreal, where he founded the pioneering music blog Said the Gramophone. His award-winning writing has also appeared in The Observer, McSweeney's, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Maisonneuve, and The Globe and Mail. Sean's debut novel, Us Conductors, received the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, the International DUBLIN Literary Award, and (in translation) the Prix des libraires de Quebec. He enjoys cold water, warm madeleines and songs with colours in their titles.