The Education of Aubrey McKee

(Paperback)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A young writer finds his way in and out of love in the late twentieth century.

The scene is Toronto, early 1990s, and Aubrey McKee has fallen in love with a bewitching stranger, a poet who talks him into stealing her a piece of cake from a party and quickly becomes the person for whom he would do anything at all. As their relationship deepens and their creative and professional lives stumble, stall, then suddenly ignite, Aubrey and Gudrun struggle against their own limitationsas well as each others. Prefaced by a short story and concluded with a play, The Education of Aubrey McKee is the much-anticipated continuation of Alex Pugsleys debut Aubrey McKee, a campus novel in which the city of Toronto itself is the institute of higher education, and a glittering story about learning how to love.

Reviews

Praise for Aubrey McKee

Aubrey McKee is no austere, white-walled art gallery of a novel. Its abundant, highly decorated, and unafraid of extravagance, of stylistic excess From ordinary incidentsa childhood acquaintance, marital strife, a weddingas well as a few extraordinary ones, Aubrey McKee builds a dazzling and complicated world, a childhood in Halifax as a vibrant universe in itself."
Toronto Star

Evoking comparisons in both style and substance to the work of John Irving and Robertson Davies in its assemblage of perceptive, richly detailed character studies The life of a Canadian city is revealed with verve and insight.
Kirkus

A wonderful book, it absolutely floored me. Its been a very long time since Ive read anything like it I found Aubrey McKee to be more reminiscent of Dubliners by James Joyce, not only because the sense of place is so strong, but because the narrative in this book is told through interconnected stories.
Jason Jefferies, Bookin

The mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic Halifax depicted in Aubrey McKee is as enchanted as it is benighted, an adolescent fever-dream. This is a rollicking, strange and unforgettable coming of age novel unlike anything youve ever read.
Lynn Coady, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of Hellgoing

Author Bio

As a screenwriter and story editor, Alex Pugsley has worked on over 185 produced episodes of television, writing for performers such as Dan Aykroyd and Michael Cera. Recently, he wrote and directed the feature film Dirty Singles which won the Irving Avrich Emerging Filmmaker Award at Toronto International Film Festival. Following the publication of his first novel, Aubrey McKee, he was named one of CBCs 2020 Writers to Watch. He lives in Toronto.