13 Ways of Listening to a Stranger

Keath Fraser is without a doubt one of the most original voices in Canadian letters. He is a writer of truly wonderous imagination and a master of the art of narrative invention. 13 Ways of Listening to a Stranger is a selection of eighteen of his best stories from the past twenty-five years. Here is a collection of short fiction that showcases the sheer genius of this extraordinary writer, who has been far too under-recognized and who may be one of the best kept secrets in Canadian literature. On a gulf island, a woman with defective syntax prepares for an important speech. A baritone opera singer in San Francisco finds elegiac flight from an imprisoning tire farm and his present legacy of glory holes. A retired diplomat struggles undiplomatically to overcome crippling decline with the help of a teenage girl. Other stories from the West Coast tell of transgressing couples, kidnapped children, rooming-house men on welfare. Narrative journeys elsewhere also carry unexpected ends: a