Idaho Winter - ECW Press

Idaho Winter

Burgess, Tony

$12.95

  • “The world of Tony Burgess is savage and blackly funny … It’s a place where you shouldn’t trust anybody, not even your narrator.” — Uptown Magazine

    “Idaho Winter is absurd and acceptable at the same time; its prose is pleasurable and unnerving.” — Globe and Mail

    Shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award

    Idaho Winter is a boy who, through no fault of his own, is loathed by everyone in his town. His father feeds him roadkill for breakfast, the crossing guard steers cars toward him as he crosses the road, and parents encourage their children to plot against him. That is, until he meets a young girl named Madison who empathizes with his suffering. But when Madison is attacked by dogs meant to harm Idaho, Idaho gets up and runs home, changing the course of the entire story …

    Idaho soon learns that his suffering has been cruelly designed by a clumsy writer who has made his book meaner than all the others to make it stand out. With this information, Idaho has become armed with the knowledge that the entire world is invented, and that he now has the power to change things — in a novel that is both “one of the finest parodies ever penned of the stereotypically didactic young adult novel” (Macleans) and “the most brilliantly terrifying dream you’ve ever had” (The Globe and Mail).

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  • Tony Burgess has published poetry, screenplays, criticism, and fiction. In 2009, his novel Pontypool Changes Everything was made into the award-winning movie Pontypool directed by Bruce McDonald. He is also the author of The Hellmouths of Bewdley, Caesarea, and Fiction for Lovers. Burgess lives in Stayner, Ontario.

  • Published: June 2011

    ISBN: 9781550229349

    Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.

    Pages: 152

Reviews

“Idaho Winter is not just funny, it’s supposed to be funny … Burgess’s novel, in fact, is one the finest parodies ever penned of the stereotypically didactic young adult (YA) novel.” — Maclean’s Magazine

“Burgess cleverly warps narrative convention, reinforcing common devices that are familiar to the reader so that they fall a greater distance into the unfamiliar structure of the story … Burgess scores points for creativity as he provides an incredibly rich and thought provoking read about the theory of storytelling.” — subTerrain

“[Burgess] proves himself to be a witty, lightning-quick conjurer of misanthropy in this brief, kaleidoscopic novel.” —Publishers Weekly

“Idaho’s story is the most brilliantly terrifying dream you’ve ever had, compelling and funny at times; even the random seemingly impossible events make sense in the hands of Burgess … Idaho Winter is absurd and acceptable at the same time; its prose is pleasurable and unnerving.” — Globe and Mail

“The world of Tony Burgess is savage and blackly funny … It’s a place where you shouldn’t trust anybody, not even your narrator. This is not Alice Munro’s small-town Canada. Burgess rips open the guts of Canadian literature, thankfully: someone’s got to do it.” — Uptown Magazine