Blessed Nowhere
By (Author) Catherine Black
Guernica Editions,Canada
Guernica Editions,Canada
10th February 2025
Canada
General
Fiction
Paperback
250
Width 127mm, Height 203mm, Spine 15mm
331g
After the tragic loss of her son, Abby attempts to escape her grief by taking to the open road, only to find herself in Central Mexico in a hotel that's home to other lost souls.
It's the late nineties, when it is still possible to disappear, and Abby is at an impasse between self-destruction and dissolution. Just months after the death of her son, in a last-ditch effort to escape her reality, Abby buys a $500 car, tucks a buck knife in her glove box, and makes one impulsive move: she takes an exit south and keeps driving. It's in a small town in central Mexico that Abby's physical journey comes to an end, and it's there amongst other outcasts and expats that Abby might finally choose to see beyond her own grief.
This is a novel rich with life and empathy in a sea of grief. One of the most beautiful books I have read.
--Nazanine Hozar, Guernica Prize judgeCatherine Black is an Associate Professor at OCAD University, where she was a co-founder of the Creative Writing BFA program. She has published two collections of prose poetry:Lessons of Chaos and Disaster,and Pat Lowther Award-nominatedBewilderness. Her lyric nonfiction novella,A Hard Gold Threadwas nominated for the ReLit Award. This is her first novel.