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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
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THE BONE MOTHER

David Demchuk

LONGLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE (2017)
Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens and seers—and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall—will chill your marrow and tear at your heart.
Good Children Do Taste Better.
Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind—and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary—they tell their stories and confront their destinies.

The Rusalka, the beautiful vengeful water spirit who lives in lakes and ponds and lures men and children to their deaths; The Vovkulaka, who changes from her human form into that of a wolf, and hides with her kind deep in the densest forests; The Strigoi, a revenant who feasts on blood and twists the minds of those who love, serve and shelter him; The Dvoynik, an apparition that impersonates its victim and draws him into a web of evil in order to free itself; and the Bone Mother, a skeletal crone with iron teeth who lurks in her house in the heart of the woods, and cooks and eats those who fail her vexing challenges.

DAVID DEMCHUK was born and raised in Winnipeg and now lives in Toronto. He has been writing for theatre, film, television, radio and other media for more than thirty years. His publications include the short-fiction cycle Seven Dreams and the Lewis Carroll adaptation Alice in Cyberspace, and appearances in the anthologies Making, Out!, Outspoken and Canadian Brash. His reviews, essays, interviews and columns have appeared in such magazines as Toronto Life, Xtra, What! Magazine and Prairie Fire, as well as the Toronto Star. Most recently he has been a contributing writer for the digital magazine Torontoist.
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Book

Published 2017-07-01 by ChiZine

Comments

“Scary Well crafted and significant in its own right, Demchuk's novel seems all the more important in light of recent displays of farright and overt Nazi hatred. As one narrator says, ‘Some stories need to be told time and again. Every generation forgets. Every child learns anew.'”

“Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they're grounded.”