THE JULIET STORIES

Juliet Friesen is 10 years old when her family moves to Nicaragua in 1984 at the height of the country's post-revolutionary war to protest the American involvement in the conflict. The Friesens' lives are under threat and the danger is real, but in the midst of this tumult, the extremity of the situation produces a kind of euphoria, protecting Juliet's family from its own cracks and conflicts.

When Juliet's younger brother becomes sick with cancer, the family's adventure ends abruptly. Back in North America, the Friesens are confronted with the fact that their lives beyond Nicaragua have become the war zone, and one by one, they begin to drift from each other. As Juliet grows to adulthood, she is pulled between her desire to live a free life like the one she remembers in Nicaragua, and her desire to build a life more settled than her parents could provide.

Episodic and fluid in structure, The Juliet Stories is a heart-wrenching account of a dysfunctional family's trials, comparable to Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. Written with laser-sharp prose and breathtaking insight, Snyder writes artfully and authoritatively on family, love, and loss, and writes equally fearlessly on sexuality, adultery, revolution and war.

Carrie Snyder was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and grew up in Ohio, Nicaragua, and Ayr, Ontario. Her first book, Hair Hat, published by Penguin Canada, was well received in Canada and nominated for the Danuta Gleed Award for Short Fiction. No foreign rights were sold.