The Beggar's Garden : The Stories by Michael Christie

Longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Critically lauded, The Beggar s Garden is a brilliantly surefooted, strikingly original collection of nine linked short stories that will delight as well as disturb. The stories follow a diverse group of curiously interrelated characters, from bank manager to crackhead to retired Samaritan to web designer to car thief, as they drift through each other s lives in Vancouver s Downtown Eastside. These engrossing stories, free of moral judgment, are about people who are searching in the jagged margins of life for homes, drugs, love, forgiveness and collectively they offer a generous and vivid portrait of humanity, not just in Vancouver but in any modern urban centre. The Beggar s Garden is a powerful and affecting debut. Its individual stories have been anthologized in The Journey Prize Stories and have been nominated for major awards, including a National Magazine Award for fiction. The collection has been longlisted for the Frank O Connor International Short Story Award. "