Helpless (25 page)
FOR THEIR COUNSEL
and support I am grateful to Christopher Dewdney, Beth Kirkwood, Marni Jackson, Virginia de Vasconcelos, Jacqui Brady, Iris Tupholme, Sara Bershtel, Antje Kunstmann, Riva Hocherman, Richard Beswick, Christie Blatchford, and Police Constable Christopher Martin. I am particularly indebted to Superintendent Gary Ellis of the Toronto Police Service.
International Acclaim for
Helpless
“With razor-sharp emotional acuity, stoic detachment and incisive prose, Gowdy, one of Canada’s boldest writers, looks beyond preconceptions in pursuit of underlying truths.”
—
Ottawa Citizen
“Brilliant…Gowdy’s prose is, as usual, clean and precise. There is not a single word here that doesn’t further her story.”
—
Edmonton Journal
“An assured, perceptive, deftly delivered story.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
(Starred Review)
“Absorbing reading…[Gowdy’s] true feat is the sympathetic portrayal of Ron himself, a man who seems painfully unaware of his own dark impulses.”
—
Booklist
“Gowdy consistently zeros in on strange minds, on propositions of difference in consciousness, and then resolves them through a kind of sympathetic intervention.”
—
The Globe and Mail
“Through Gowdy’s fictional exploration we may exorcise our deepest fears.”
—
The Independent
“Gowdy’s seventh novel, a nail-biting tale of suspense, spells extra work for manicurists everywhere. Highly recommended.”
—
Library Journal
(Starred Review)
“Astonishing. We realize that it has been love, and nothing but love—Gowdy’s enduring subject—that has been driving this time bomb of a novel all along.”
—
The Vancouver Sun
“Gowdy writes as if she’s on a sinking boat and needs to throw out all the dead weight.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“No one shades the darkness quite like Gowdy.”
—
Eye Weekly
The Romantic
The White Bone
Mister Sandman
We So Seldom Look on Love
Falling Angels
Through the Green Valley
Helpless
© 2007 by Barbara Gowdy. P.S. section © 2008 by Barbara Gowdy.
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Originally published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd: 2007
This trade paperback edition: 2008
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Gowdy, Barbara Helpless : a novel / Barbara Gowdy.
I. Title.
PS8563.0883H44 2008 C813’.54 C2007-907028-0
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