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list price: $19.95
edition:Paperback
category: Fiction
published: Jan 1993
ISBN:9780889104563
publisher: Talonbooks

Main Brides

by Gail Scott

tagged: literary, contemporary women
Description

It is a hot June day. A woman sits in a bar in Montreal’s Main, waiting. Pushing down the disturbing scene (the police, a blanket) she saw that morning in the park. To focus herself, she tries to guess the stories of other women who come and go as the day darkens into night: the teenager Nanette; Adele of Halifax, who’s constantly on a train; a woman just back from Cuba; two lesbian lovers (one’s a “cowgirl”); Z., a performance artist; Norma jean from Toronto; the taunting radio voice of a woman promising a tango. Between the portraits, the woman watches and drinks and spins a setting for her “brides.” The question is, why does she keep deferring going home?

About the Author

Gail Scott is an experimental novelist. The Obituary (New York, Nightboat, 2012; Coach House, 2010), a ghost story set in a Montreal triplex, was a 2011 finalist for Le Grand Prix du Livre de la Ville de Montreal. Other novels include My Paris (Dalkey Archive), about a sad diarist in conversation with Gertrude Stein and Walter Benjamin in late 20th century Paris, Main Brides and Heroine. Spare Parts Plus 2 is a collection of stories and manifestoes. Essays are collected in Spaces Like Stairs and la theorie, un dimanche (translated as Sunday Theory from Belladonna, NY, 2013). Scott's translation of Michael Delisle's Le D'asarroi du matelot was shortlisted for the Governor General's award in 2001. Scott co-founded the critical French-language journal Spirale'(Montreal) and is co-editor of the New Narrative anthology: Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative (Toronto: Coach House, 2004). She is currently completing a memoir based in Lower Manhattan during the early Obama years. Gail currently lives in Montreal.

Contributor Notes

Gail Scott
Gail Scott’s fiction and criticism have appeared in several journals. She is the author of two novels: Main Brides (1993) and Heroine (1987); Spare Parts, a collection of short stories; and Spaces Like Stairs, a collection of essays. Most recently, she translated Lise Tremblay’s Mile End (La danse juive, Lemeac, 1999). She lives in Montréal.

Editorial Reviews

Scott is one of the most gutsy writers around.
—Globe & Mail


“Gail Scott has an extraordinary ability to compress scenic observations … into short, jewel-like notations.”
Hugh Hood

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