THE WIVES OF BATH

At once shocking and wickedly funny, The Wives of Bath penetrates the world of a girls' boarding school that encompasses rebellion and murder. (Random House Canada, 1993; UK: Granta Books, 1993; Germany: Piper, 1996; Holland: Arena, 1995)

Susan Swan has created an unforgettable heroine in Mary Bradford. Wise, witty and vulnerable, Mary (a.k.a. Mouse) is thirteen when she is shipped off to Bath Ladies College. Mouse is determined never to fit in with the "normal" girls. She chooses her allies carefully: her hump, whom she calls Alice, and John F. Kennedy, to whom she writes long letters asking and giving advice.

But the school itself is stranger than Mouse ever could have imagined. Mouse is not the only one rebelling against the spinster teachers and elegant mothers by refusing to be a good little girl.

The Wives of Bath moves the heart and astonishes the imagination as it stunningly evokes the pain, confusion, and humour of female adolescence and sexual coming-of-age. As her roommate Paulie pushes against the confines of her gender-identity, Mouse joins her experiments with self-discovery which spins out of control and ends in a murder only Mouse can fully comprehend.

The Wives of Bath was a 1993 finalist for the U.K.'s Guardian Award and Ontario's Trillium Award. It was picked by a U.S. Readers' Guide as one of the best novels of the nineties. The best selling novel was made into the internationally acclaimed film, Lost and Delirious, directed by Lea Pool and starring Mischa Barton. Originally released in 2001, the film has been show in over 30 countries.

Journalist, feminist, novelist, activist, teacher. Susan Swan's impact on the Canadian literary and political scene has been far-reaching. Susan Swan's critically acclaimed fiction has been published in twenty countries. She is the author of seven books including the forthcoming The Dead Celebrities Club and her short stories have been published in Granta and in Ms. Magazine. Swan has retired from her position of Associate Professor of Humanities at York University and currently mentors creative writing students at the University of Toronto and Humber College's School of Creative Writing. In 1999-2000, she was awarded York's Millennial Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies and in 2007-2008 was chair of The Writers' Union of Canada. A native of southwestern Ontario and graduate of McGill University, Susan Swan makes her home and garden in Toronto's Annex. neighbourhood.