by Suzette Mayr
Lyrics from ‘No Such Thing as the Future’ by Immaculate Machine. Copyright Mint Records. Used by permission.
Lyrics from ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ by Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar. Copyright 1982 Warner House of Music and WB Gold Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Acknowledgements
A big thank you to the many people who helped me write this book: Nicole Markotić, Rosemary Nixon and Nancy Jo Cullen— my divine writer/editor/ass-kicker peeps who read and reread and re-reread and kept me on the path; Alana Wilcox for her amazing editorial eagle eye and brutal (always in a good way) questions, and Evan Munday and all the folks at Coach House Books. For the other important miscellaneous, thank you to Lisa Brawn, Susan Bercha, Ally Flynn, Friedrich Mayr, Allison Lynch-Griffiths, Susan Holbrook, Lori Kennedy, Alice Zorn, Jonathan Ball, Luke Cullen LeBlanc, Melissa Jackson, Belén Martín Lucas, Deb Dudek, Jacqueline Larson, Andrea Kwan, Ulrich Mayr, Rose-Marie Mayr, Wendy Beaver, Julien Mayr, Stéphan De Loof, Alanna Callaghan, Louise Belanger, Birdie and Tequila. Thank you to the people who let me interview them: Steven Peters, Carly York Jones of Carly’s Angels, Dev Drysdale, Kathy Cloutier, Gord Baldwin and Keith Johnson.
Texts that were extremely useful: Prayers for Bobby: A Mother’s Coming to Terms with the Suicide of her Gay Son by Leroy Aarons, Edmonton River Queen by Darrin Hagen, The Mourner’s Dance: What We Do When People Die by Katherine Ashenburg, ‘Do I Disappoint You’ by Rufus Wainwright, The God Box by Alex Sanchez, Blackbird by Larry Duplechan, The Unicorn by Nancy Hathaway, Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow ed. by Kenneth J. Doka, That’s So Gay!: Homophobia in Canadian Catholic Schools by Tonya Callaghan, Lettin’ It All Hang Out by RuPaul, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century by Shaun Cole, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, ‘Blue Sky’ by Nicole Markotić.
An extra, extra special thank you to Tonya Callaghan for making this text possible and livable, and for continuing to laugh at my jokes.
About the Author
Suzette Mayr is the author of three previous novels: Venous Hum, The Widows and Moon Honey. The Widows was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book in the Canada-Caribbean Region and has been translated into German. Moon Honey was shortlisted for the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and the Henry Kreisel Award for Best First Book. She lives in Calgary.
Typeset in Bell and Bolero
Printed and bound at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane, 2011
Edited and designed by Alana Wilcox
Author photo by Tonya Callaghan
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