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In Clea Young’s arresting sophomore collection of stories, friendships fail, families stumble, and neighbours know each other’s business
Distinctly rooted in the Pacific Northwest, Young’s characters make their marks and take their missteps on the beaches, in the mountains and neighbourhoods in and around Vancouver, BC. A couple spontaneously invite their new neighbours to dinner and the night takes a menacing turn. A widow seeks solace and revenge on the mountain bike trails behind her home. And an overwhelmed single mother moves into a housing cooperative the same summer two teenage boys are on the run, wanted for murder.
The women in these stories crave connection but often get in their own way of achieving it. They are stubborn, jealous, and stuck. They are misunderstood—and misunderstand—and lonely. They are also perceptive and empathetic. In prose that sparks and spits, by turns poetic and plain, Young writes assuredly of loneliness and connection, love and loss, fear and fortitude, and perhaps most evocatively of the labyrinthine inner lives of women.
“These stories are so sly, funny, and perceptive … Clea Young is an astute and compassionate chronicler of contemporary life.” —Caroline Adderson, author of A Way to Be Happy and A Russian Sister
“A refreshing group of stories. With an incisive eye, Young captures both a geography and a generation of reluctant adults.” — Literary Review of Canada
“Throughout [Welcome to the Neighbourhood], surveillant and scopophilic glances between Young’s characters create a complex optical ecosystem in which ordinary life becomes spectacular.” — EVENT Magazine
“Hilarious, riveting, quietly beautiful. These stories will sneak up to snare you with their power.” —Shaena Lambert, author of Petra and Oh, My Darling
“A powerhouse collection that … brims with insight and thrums with unexpected danger … Clea Young proves again she is a master of the short story.” —Saleema Nawaz, author of Songs for the End of the World
“A pure pleasure to read! These stories are beautifully constructed and intensely intelligent … Short fiction at its best.” —Deborah Willis, author of Girlfriend on Mars
“A vivid, often funny, completely engaging collection that captures many facets of contemporary life.” — Winnipeg Free Press
“Young writes with wit and great insight about characters who feel overlooked and out of sorts.” — The British Columbia Review
“Impressive collection of stories … Young highlights, with a disarming thoughtfulness, the inescapable tensions of individuality and, consequently, social groupings in a larger world.” — The Miramichi Reader
“Young consistently demonstrates a special sensitivity towards her youthful characters, and the relationships and tension between them and the adults who also inhabit her stories.” — Scout Magazine
“A subtle book that needles at the social and societal expectations we find ourselves working within, in white, middle class Canada.” — I’ve Read This Blog