Search results for ""David Whitton" "Seven Down""

Book SynopsisIn this quirky, character-driven debut novel seven hotel employees puzzle out the events of a botched assassination attempt the next read for fans of Fredrik Backman (Anxious People) and Matt Haig (The Midnight Library).Finalist for the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best First Novel Seven ordinary hotel employees. Catering, Reservations, Management. Seven moles, waiting for years for a single code word, a trigger that will send them into action in a violent event that will end their dull lives as they know them. The event has failed: the action was a disaster. Each employee is being debriefed by an agent of an invisible organization. These are the transcripts of those interviews. What they reveal is not just the intricate mechanism of an international assassination, but the yearnings inside each of its pawns, the desperation and secret rage that might cause any one of us to sign up, sell out, and take a plunge into darkness.<Trade ReviewWhitton pens a debut that is both comedic and introspective, skewering the attempts of an organization trying to find out what went wrong with the group of people it tried so hard to manipulate. This one is perfect for fans of quirky novels like those of Fredrik Backman and Jennifer Egan. * Booklist *In Seven Down David Whitton shines klieg lights on the human condition with all its yearning, existential anxiety, and ridiculousness. With just the right amount of whodunnit and whydunit, this loopy and exhilaratingly tangential spy novel keeps the reader’s synapses firing on all cylinders. * Zsuzsi Gartner, author of Better Living through Plastic Explosives and The Beguiling *Wildly original, economically written, profound, and very "now", Seven Down is a breath of fresh, vibrant literary air. * Kid Ferrous Reviews *Incredibly original! The writing is flawless, effortlessly weaving the events of the day together through the voices of seven sleeper agents, each with a distinct and unique personality creating a rich in-depth story you cannot possibly put down! * Partridge Pages *A witty, sharply written and concise story. * Boyd Blog *Hilarious and haunting… combines the paranoid atmosphere of Don DeLillo with the bureaucratic procedure and spy tradecraft of John le Carré, while evoking both laughter and horror. * Winnipeg Free Press *Highly amusing, and a much-needed antidote to the writings of too many spy novelists. * Ottawa Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisA searching, self-deprecating memoir of a man on his way to eating himself to death before discovering the anxiety and fulfillment of distance running.Uplifting, emotional, and just plain hilarious, The Running-Shaped Hole may even inspire you to put down your fork and pick up those running shoes. JAY ONRAIT, TSN host and broadcasterWhen Robert Earl Stewart sees his pants lying across the end of his bed, they remind him of a flag draped over a coffin his coffin. At thirty-eight years old he weighs 368 pounds and is slowly eating himself to death. The only thing that helps him deal with the fear and shame is eating. But one day, following a terrifying doctor's appointment, he goes for a walk an act that sets The Running-Shaped Hole in motion. Within a year, he is running long distances, fulfilling his mother''s dying wishes, reversing the disastrous course of his eating, losing 140 pounds, and, after several mishaps and jail timeTrade ReviewUplifting, emotional, and just plain hilarious, Robert Earl Stewart’s The Running-Shaped Hole may even inspire you to put down your fork and pick up those running shoes. No offence to forks. * Jay Onrait, TSN host and broadcaster *Robert Earl Stewart’s The Running-Shaped Hole is a memoir that speaks to the spirit of persistence, commitment, wisdom, and great wit. Stewart conjures up his hometown in a vibrant way, so that Windsor comes alive in your mind’s eye. At the core of it all, Stewart writes about the empty spaces within ourselves that we so desperately try to fill in. You don’t need to be a runner to read this book; it’s a story that will resonate with anyone who has come face to face with themselves in their quest to grow as a person. * Kim Fahner, author of These Wings *Running is much more than an endurance sport in Robert Earl Stewart’s wildly kinetic memoir. It’s a tour through the pitches and squeezes of the human soul. Running is surrender and transcendence, a bright flight through the mad tumble of moments that comprise our lives. At turns harrowing, heart-rending, and gut-punch hilarious, The Running-Shaped Hole recounts how Stewart, through sheer bloody-mindedness, a rock-solid family, and chafed thighs, pulled himself from the pit of addiction onto a new path, one paved with grace, faith, and redemption. Sometimes, he reminds us, we need to fall down if we want to grow up. * David Whitton, author of Seven Down *This is a book about honesty, and family, and love, and health, and faith, and reading and writing and rock ’n’ roll, and Windsor. It’s also about running, kind of, and about gaining from our losses as we pound the pavement together. Robert Earl Stewart’s big heart beats on every page and the beautiful intimacy of his writing carries us across the border that so often separates us from ourselves and the people we live with. The Running Shaped Hole is a memoir that will move you, literally, and in all the more important ways, too. * Alexander MacLeod, Giller Prize-shortlisted author of Light Lifting *Robert Earl Stewart’s The Running-Shaped Hole is a deeply personal memoir that you’ll love whether you run or not, weaving mind, body, city, love, and faith together. A story about figuring it out and running toward something rather than away in Windsor, a post-industrial city that’s as much a character in the book as the people are. * Shawn Micallef, author of The Trouble with Brunch: Work, Class and the Pursuit of Leisure *Robert Earl Stewart’s compelling and moving memoir is at once a deeply personal search for redemption — unnameable obsessions manifesting in booze, overeating, and finally an unexpected reckoning with the criminal courts — and a tale of running-as-obsession in which any runner will hear the echoes of their own footfalls. Ultimately, we run to run — but we never outrun ourselves. * A.J. Somerset, author of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun *Stewart conveys his athletic journey in a compelling and animated way that won't leave sedentary readers behind. * Quill & Quire *Stewart takes readers on a very honest journey through his own life and the result is an excellent read. * Winnipeg Free Press *

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