“Belcourt is one of the finest and most sublime writers at work today. This book is a feat of beauty and compression, every sentence reinventing the reader.” —Claudia Dey, author of Daughter
A collection of intersecting stories about Indigenous love and loneliness from one of contemporary literature’s most boundless minds.
Across the prairies and Canada’s west coast, on reserves and university campuses, at literary festivals and existential crossroads, the characters in Coexistence are searching for connection. They’re learning to live with and understand one another, to see beauty and terror side by side, and to accept that the past, present, and future can inhabit a single moment.
An aging mother confides in her son about an intimate friendship from her distant girlhood. A middling poet is haunted by the cliché his life has become. A chorus of anonymous gay men dispense unvarnished truths about their sex lives. A man freshly released from prison finds that life on the outside has sinister strictures of its own. A PhD student dog-sits for his parents at what was once a lodging for nuns operating a residential school—a house where the spectre of Catholicism comes to feel eerily literal.
Bearing the compression, crystalline sentences, and emotional potency that have characterized his earlier books, Coexistence is a testament to Belcourt’s mastery of and playfulness in any literary form. A vital addition to an already rich catalogue, this is a must-read collection and the work of an author at the height of his powers.
Wanted more it was so good!
"4. 75⭐️ This book was beyond beautiful, from the writing to the characters, to the plot and their experiences. It was educational depicting various experiences of Indigenous people in Canada and life on the reserves and how colonialism/racism/homophobia is still impacting them. It was a page turner, the characters and their experiences and feelings were so compelling, they were all so raw and tender, I was feeling their pain, love grief, my heart hurt for every character, I only wanted the best for them. To be Indigenous is hard, racism, is still alive, and to add in being gay, it can become even harder- and we got to follow numerous characters at various stages- from first love, education, heartbreak, starting over, and grief (for family and for identity), this book was everything I wanted and more. I have never read a book quite like this, and I am so happy I could read about Indigenous people, it’s lacking in my library and I feel like I learnt a lot about how their experiences differ. My only critique, is length- I want to follow each character more, I want a five hundred page book, it was quite an incredible read"
