HALF LIFE

For readers of Miriam Toews, HALF LIFE is a riveting portrait of sisters and daughters navigating the murky tensions of physics and belief, memory and family bonds

When a yellow-eyed dog is left on her doorstep and a strange creature appears under the trees outside her classroom, middle-aged Milwaukee physics teacher Elin Frederiksen has to reconcile her past, present and future or lose her mind, and job, trying.
As she organizes a party for Mette, her soon-to-visit songwriter sister, Elin grapples with the recent death of her brother, her formidable Danish mother's new frailty and the imminent departure of an adored 18-year-old daughter. And then there are those uncomfortable memories triggered by her designer father's most admired modernist chair. Instead of a celebration, Mette's arrival underscores the sisters' brokenness, and forces Elin to confront the price paid for loving those who don't believe your story.

Krista Foss' short fiction has appeared in Granta and has twice been a finalist for the Journey Prize. Her essay writing won the PRISM International creative non-fiction contest in 2016, has been featured in Best Canadian Essays and nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her first novel, Smoke River, published by McClelland & Stewart (2014), won the Hamilton Literary Award. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario.