About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
Following the worldwide success of A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, Gil Courtemanche returns with a short, intimate, powerful second novel. A Good Death describes the everyday tragedy, horror, cowardice and love that lie at the heart of one family.
On Christmas Eve, a family has gathered for the obligatory dinner. The father, only yesterday an imposing figure who terrorized his children, has suddenly fallen prey to Parkinson's and finds himself trapped inside a disintegrating body. Andre, the eldest child, is approaching sixty. He has never loved his father, yet can't help but be moved as he witnesses his decline. How should we behave towards a parent to whom all pleasures are forbidden? Sould we struggle to prolong his life, or help him to end it? Around the dinner table, opinions are divided. Once more, Gil Courtemanche takes us on a deeply moving voyage into the essence of our humanity.
Awards
- , Ontario Library Association - Evergreen Award
- Winner, Alcuin Society Book Design Awards - Prose Fiction
Editorial Reviews
"The beauty of A Good Death is in Courtemanche’s deft exploration of Andrea’s love for his father, even as he denies to himself that he feels this love. His quest for understanding, and the conflicting needs of parents and children, make for an intense emotional journey that is raw and honest."
— Geist Magazine
"[A Good Death is] a striking account of a family and its efforts to cope with the binding prospect of death. ...[The] rather original approach challenges readers to look at their own lives and examine past events which, for better or worse, have shaped the individuals they have become."
— Books in Canada
"Canadian author Courtemanche beautifully captures the conflicted dynamic of a dutiful child who has never loved his father, desperately needs to please his loving mother, and can only survive by maintaining emotional distance from the whole messy swamp of lifelong familial grievances and entrenched behaviors...This follow-up to the brilliant Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (2003) beautifully compacts the big issues of aging, dying, and duty into scenes of resentful devotion, cheerful fatalism, and intimacy held at arm's length. Highly recommended."
— Library Journal
"Gil Courtemanche turns his unsparing eye...to a smaller but nevertheless seething locus for a political and ethical dilemma -- the family...it raises powerful questions -- what is a good death, or life, anyway? And the ending is literally breathtaking."
— Kitchener-Waterloo Record
