Waiting for Joe Paperback by Sandra Birdsell

Product Details

• Publisher: Vintage Canada (2011-09-13)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 288 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780307359179
• Item Weight: 232.47 grams
• Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.75 cm

After you've lost it all—job, house, savings, future—what have you got left? A piercing new novel of our times by one of Canada's finest fiction writers.

On a chilly early morning in late spring, Joe Beaudry and his wife, Laurie, wake up in circumstances that would challenge saints: they are on the lam in a stolen motorhome on the edge of a Walmart parking lot in Regina, Saskatchewan. They've gone bust, spectacularly: lost the house that was Joe's gift from his dad, lost the business Joe started when he got married, and stuck his ancient father in a nursing home in Winnipeg so they could flee their creditors. Joe knows the reality of the situation, and is trying to raise enough cash to get them both to Fort McMurray where he hopes he can find work. But Laurie, even though she watched Joe trash their high-end appliances with a sledgehammer when the yard sale didn't deliver enough cash, somehow thinks it's only temporary, and maxes out their last credit card on wardrobe and hair dye and wishes and dreams. For Joe, it's the last straw in a marriage that once seemed star-crossed and now seems simply unworkable.

Pushed to figure out what to do next, Joe simply takes off hitchhiking, leaving Laurie waiting for Joe, and Joe wondering how he will ever find meaning in a world that has disappointed his every expectation. The road for both of them provides surprising answers...

About the Author

SANDRA BIRDSELL, CM, is an award-winning Canadian novelist and short story writer of Métis and Mennonite heritage. She is the author of The Missing Child, winner of the Books in Canada First Novel Award; The Chrome Suite, shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction; The Rüsslander, shortlisted for the Giller Prize and winner of the Saskatchewan Book of the Year for Fiction; Children of the Day, longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and winner of the Saskatchewan Best Fiction Award; and Waiting for Joe, shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English Fiction. She is also the author of short story collections, including Night Travellers and The Two-Headed Calf, as well as scripts for television, theatre, and radio. In 2010, Birdsell was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada and in 2012 was invested with the Saskatchewan Order of Merit.