When news that the legal wrangling has finally been settled over a bequest from a deceased benefactor, Colonel Cary, leaving the remote Cary Island in Northern Ontario to the institute, Lou is dispatched to catalogue the library and contents of the house on the island. The story is that of shy, friendless librarian, Lou, who has worked in the basement of the local Heritage Institute in Toronto for five years. She has weekly, joyless sex on her desk with the institute’s director, ‘her only human contact’, out of habit and convenience. Quotes are from Margaret Atwood and Daisy Johnson, with Atwood describing the story as “plausible as kitchens, but shapely as a folktale”. Not sure about the kitchens, but a shapely folktale it certainly is. So good on Daunt Books for rising to the challenge with this new edition, boasting an ambiguous if tasteful cover depicting a hand ruffling an expansive brown furry surface that might just as easily be a rug. New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENTīut incredibly, despite winning the Governor General’s Award and considered a classic in Canada, Bear has never been published in the UK.
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