Elaine McCluskey

McCluskey’s galloping story, at once comic and slyly observational, is twisty and occasionally absurd – with red herrings and shaggy dog detours – but highly relatable. The Gift Child  also teems with insights into the human condition and snappy turns of phrase. “Beautiful people are like that, aren’t they? … ” she writes. “They do not see you. […]

The Gift Child, by Elaine McCluskey

“McCluskey is a delightfully deft stylist; her sentences are replete with striking images, as with her description of the old Swim house in Pollock Passage, where the shirts on the clothesline “flapped and fluttered like hope.” Overall, Harriett is enjoyable company as she struggles, as we all do, to make sense of the many scattered […]

“One thing is for sure, Elaine McCluskey captures the goofy spirit of Nova Scotians with precision, charm, and wit. This novel is sure to please.” Laurie Burns

“Sardonic, laugh-out-loud, tender and true, THE GIFT CHILD is a triumph. Elaine McCluskey is one of my must-read Canadian authors, and you should pick up this novel to find out why.” Kerry Clare

The Gift Child proceeds on the irony of directionlessness. In their search for Graham, Harriett’s family follows a variety of false leads buried in the opacity of police procedurals. That her narration is part of a memoir about the messiness of truth is undisguised; she acknowledges that it is an undifferentiated mass of lies, multiple truths, […]

A book launched is planned for March 24 in Dartmouth, where part of The Gift Child is set. It will be in the Helen Creighton Room at the Alderney Gate Public Library. Time 2-3:30 pm. All welcome.

Rafael Has Pretty Eyes is this year’s winner of the Alistair MacLeod short-fiction award. Click on Atlantic Book Awards.