The Octopus Has Three Hearts

The Octopus Has Three Hearts

Paperback (11 Nov 2021)

  • $19.97
Add to basket

Includes delivery to the United States

10+ copies available online - Usually dispatched within 2-3 weeks

Publisher's Synopsis

Nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize: Acclaimed poet Rachel Rose makes her fiction debut in a collection featuring outcasts who find solace in the animal world.

The Octopus Has Three Hearts offers dispatches from the margins of human society. These are stories about damaged people who have committed, witnessed or survived terrible acts and who must make their way in an unforgiving world.

From a goat farmer to a suburban adulterer, a violent child to a polyamorous marine biologist, Rose's diverse characters have little in common except a life-sustaining connection to the animal world. The octopus, dogs, pigs, chameleons, bats, parrots, rats and sugar gliders in their lives extend a measure of compassion and solace that their human communities lack.

Rachel Rose's finely tuned sense of irony is evident in this collection, which embraces the strange and unexpected, exploring the outer limits of empathy and forgiveness. Her flawed and broken characters, who may range far from readers' own lived experiences, reveal universal elements of the human condition and the curious redemption of the human-animal bond.

Book information

ISBN: 9781771622882
Publisher: Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
Imprint: Douglas & McIntyre
Pub date:
Language: English
Number of pages: 272
Weight: 340g
Height: 216mm
Width: 140mm
Spine width: 20mm