Hovel: A Novel - Couverture rigide

Ross, Ailsa

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0771013485 ISBN 13 : 9780771013485

Editeur : Strange Light, 2026

Synopsis

A CBC and Globe and Mail Spring Book Pick

In this debut novel, a young woman in the Rocky Mountains, separated from the ancestral rhythms of her home in Scotland, turns to ancient rituals to find solace and connection. With shades of Olga Tokarczuk, Ali Smith, and Rachel Cusk, Hovel is a book for those fascinated by female interiority.

Homesickness takes many forms. Alone in the mountains because of her husband’s job, occupied by little more than online video captioning she calls “kitten work,” our narrator becomes fascinated by the not-long-gone life of her Scottish ancestors, a time when the lamplighter took the night off for the full moon, girls bathed their faces in morning dew, and people sang to the seals.  

Her husband, however, is unsure of the emotional efficacy of cooking by candlelight, peeing in the woods, and writing vexed letters to the mayor about the birds living in the doomed aspens behind their apartment building. Especially because the letters are being read, out loud, at the town meetings attended by unimpressed neighbours. But our narrator is bewitched by the liminality of memory. 

In a novel of compelling poetic precision and depth, Ross captures the lengths we go to for connection when we’re alone, following threads of personal history and fascination to conclusions one can only reach when there’s too much time on one’s hands and it’s too cold to go outside.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

AILSA ROSS writes about people, place, and art for Outside, Orion, the Guardian, the BBC, and others. She grew up in the north of Scotland and lives in the Canadian Badlands. This is her first novel.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Strange Light
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0771013485
• ISBN 13: 9780771013485
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 352
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible