Spare Parts Plus Two

By Gail Scott

A welfare cheque floats down the river, a cowboy spreads the Word of the Lord and crotches tick like clocks: the world of Spare Parts is unpredictable, evocative and vividly distorted. Its initial appearance, in 1981, caused a stir; at a time when linear narrative was the m.o. of feminist writing, Gail Scott had the nerve to fracture and dislocate her stories and her language.

Spare Parts is as vital as it was twenty years ago. Scott's densely textured tales about the world of growing up female in a small town, where violence lurks just beneath the skin, recreate the uncertainty of life. Their incantatory language and tough imagery are as relevant and crucial now as they were then.

This edition adds two new pieces, including 'Bottoms Up', an essay on narrative which first appeared on the 'Narrativity' website Scott co-edits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Release date: Jun 16, 2002
• ISBN: 9781770562103

Gail Scott

Gail Scott is the author of the novels Main Brides (Toronto: Coach House, 1993), Heroine (Coach House, 1987; Talon, 1997), and My Paris (Toronto: Mercury Press, 1999), a collection of short stories, Spare Parts (Coach House, 1982), the essay collection Spaces like Stairs (Toronto: Women's Press, 1989), and la théorie, un dimanche (co–authored with Nicole Brossard et al., remue–ménage, 1988). She has been short–listed twice for the QSPELL (Quebec English-–language fiction) award. A former journalist who has worked for Canada's leading newspapers, she is also a founding editor of the Montreal French-–language cultural journal Spirale, and the bilingual journal of women's writing, Tessera. Her translations include France Théoret's Laurence, and The Sailor's Disquiet, and Helen with a Secret, both by Michael Delisle.

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