Heather O'Neill

A spellbinding story about two girls whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the trajectory of history. Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At 12 years old, with her blond curls and her unparalleled sense of whimsey, she's the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, an affluent strip of 19th century Montreal. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly, and brilliant, moves to the neighborhood. Marie and Sadie are immediately united by their passion and intensity, and they attract and repel each other in ways that light each of them on fire. Marie with her bubbly charm sees the light and sweetness of the world, whereas Sadie's obsession with darkness is all consuming. Soon their childlike games take on a thrill of danger and then become deadly. Forced to separate, they spend their teenage years engaged in acts of alternating innocence and depravity--until a singular event unites them once more, with dizzying effects. And after Marie inherits her father's sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city's gritty underworld, a revolution of the working class begins to foment. Each of them will have unexpected roles to play in events that upend their city--the only question is whether they will find each other once more. Traveling from a repressive finishing school to a vibrant brothel, taking readers firsthand into the brutality of factory life and the opulent lives of Montreal's wealthy, When We Lost Our Heads dazzlingly explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying power of the human heart when it can't let someone go.

When We Lost Our Heads

'Joyful, funny and vividly alive' Emily St John Mandel 'The Lonely Hearts Hotel sucked me right in and only got better and better . . . I began underlining truths I had hungered for' Miranda July 'Makes me think of comets and live wires . . . raises goosebumps' Helen Oyeyemi 'A fairytale laced with gunpowder' Kelly Link The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with a difference. Set throughout the roaring twenties, it is a wicked fairytale of circus tricks and child prodigies, radical chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians and brooding clowns, set in an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. It is the tale of two dreamers, abandoned in an orphanage where they were fated to meet. Here, in the face of cold, hunger and unpredictable beatings, Rose and Pierrot create a world of their own, shielding the spark of their curiosity from those whose jealousy will eventually tear them apart. When they meet again, each will have changed, having struggled through the Depression, through what they have done to fill the absence of the other. But their childhood vision remains - a dream to storm the world, a spectacle, an extravaganza that will lift them out of the gutter and onto a glittering stage. Heather O'Neill's pyrotechnical imagination and language are like no other. In this she has crafted a dazzling circus of a novel that takes us from the underbellies of war-time Montreal and Prohibition New York, to a theatre of magic where anything is possible - where an orphan girl can rule the world, and a ruined innocence can be redeemed.

the Bailey's Prize longlisted novel

The Lonely Hearts Hotel

The Lonely Hearts Hote is a love story with the power of legend. Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen. Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city's underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes -after years of searching and desperate poverty -the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same."----

a novel

Determined to escape their locally infamous father's notoriety, 19-year-old twins Nicholas and Nouschka of Montreal face separation from each other in the wake of Nicolas's increasingly erratic decisions. By the author of Lullabies for Little Criminals. 25,000 first printing.

A Novel

The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

Inventive, outlandish, and tender fairy tales from a bestselling author The fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O'Neill's work. In her bestselling novels Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, she transformed the shabbiest streets of Montreal with her beautiful, freewheeling metaphors. She described the smallest of things--a stray cat or a second-hand coat--with an intensity that made them otherworldly. In Daydreams of Angels, O'Neill's first collection of short stories, she gives free reign to her imaginative gifts. In "The Ugly Ducklings," generations of Nureyev clones live out their lives in a grand Soviet experiment. In "Dear Piglet," a teenaged cult follower writes a letter to explain the motivation behind her crime. And in another tale, a grandmother reveals where babies come from: the beach, where young mothers-to-be hunt for infants in the surf. Each of these beguiling stories twists the beloved narratives of childhood--fairy tales, storybooks, Bible stories--to uncover the deepest truths of family life.

Stories

Daydreams of Angels

“Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in the tea. It makes it addictive.” Charismatic Marie Antoine is the daughter of the richest man in 19th century Montreal. She has everything she wants, except for a best friend—until clever, scheming Sadie Arnett moves to the neighborhood. Immediately united by their passion and intensity, Marie and Sadie attract and repel each other in ways that thrill them both. Their games soon become tinged with risk, even violence. Forced to separate by the adults around them, they spend years engaged in acts of alternating innocence and depravity. And when a singular event brings them back together, the dizzying effects will upend the city. Traveling from a repressive finishing school to a vibrant brothel, taking readers firsthand into the brutality of factory life and the opulent lives of Montreal’s wealthy, When We Lost Our Heads dazzlingly explores gender, sex, desire, class, and the terrifying power of the human heart when it can’t let someone go.

'Like Angela Carter, she is relentlessly inventive' Sunday Times 'Full of pathos, spirit and iridescent innocence' Independent on Sunday The first novel by the author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel 12-year-old Baby is used to turmoil in her life. Her mother is long dead, her father is a junkie and they shuttle between rotting apartments and decrepit downtown hotels. As her father's addiction and paranoia grow worse, she begins a journey that will lead her through chaos and hardship; but Baby's remarkable strength of spirit enables her to survive. Smart, funny and determined to lift herself off the city's dirty streets, she knows that the only person she can truly rely upon is herself.

Lullabies for Little Criminals

Wry and witty stories of unconventional mentors show the foundation of O'Neill's writing life.

Invaluable Lessons from My Father

Wisdom in Nonsense

"Heather O'Neill's first novel is a story of a young life on the streets - and the strength, wits, and luck necessary for survival." "At thirteen, Baby vacillates between childhood comforts and adult temptation: still young enough to drag her dolls around in a vinyl suitcase yet old enough to know more than she should about urban cruelties. Motherless, she lives with her father, Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter. Baby's gift is a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap. But her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls - a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore. And when an escape disguised as betrayal threatens to crush Baby's spirit, she will ultimately realize that the power of salvation rests in her hands alone."--Jacket.

Lullabies for little criminals

***LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S FICTION PRIZE 2015*** At birth, Nouschka forms a bond with her twin that can never be broken. At six, she's the child star daughter of Quebec's most famous musician. At sixteen, she's a high-school dropout kicking up with her beloved brother. At nineteen, she's the Beauty Queen of Boulevard Saint-Laurent. At twenty, she's back in night school. And falling for an ex-convict. And it's all being filmed by a documentary crew.

The Girl who was Saturday Night

This is the first full-length collection of poems by Heather OíNeill, a writer and performer living in Montreal. two eyes are you sleeping is a linked collection of personal and political lyrics, written in a voice that reflects both the rootlessness and violence of the urban landscape and a metaphorical brilliance that transforms the ordinary into the visionary. These are poems of the street, poems of defenselessness, strength, perversity and generosity, poems of drug addicts, alcoholics, con-men and sexual adventurers, poems to shout out in the bathtub with the radio blaring out the song you loved when you were fourteen. Most of all they are about growing up human in the drab beauty of the city. Critical Comment ì...witty, penetrating, imaginative, visual, and emotional. î ó Canadian Literature, Autumn 2000 ì...[Not] just poems.... three-penny opera, early-morning police statement and the slurring song of vagabonds like magpies on methadone.î ó Matrix, Spring 1999 ì...Harsh familiarity and inventive language...creates a sense of urgency....[A] poetic exploration of poverty and single motherhood.î ó Montreal Review of Books, Summer 1999

Two Eyes Are You Sleeping

The girl who was Saturday night

Un modeste bungalow aux cadres de fenêtres peints en vert. Sur la porte, une couronne de fleurs en plastique est accrochée au-dessus du heurtoir doré. Une veilleuse de la Vierge est allumée en permanence, même si personne dans la maison ne peut prétendre croire en Dieu. 

Olive rentre aux petites heures du matin. Elle revient du Nook, au bout de la route du Mort. Elle est boueuse, mal en point, et lorsqu’elle se plonge dans la baignoire, un filet de sang s’échappe d’entre ses jambes. Dans les pièces d’à-côté, ses soeurs dorment à poings fermés. 

Elle dit qu’un homme l’a accostée et l’a forcée, mais sa famille, son enseignante et ses amies croient qu’elle ment. Entre les cours, la préparation d’une danse et les visites au dépanneur, des vers de terre lui sortent du nez, une vigne pousse dans sa cheville et une puanteur de plus en plus prenante la suit partout. 

Tu redeviendras poussière transcende la tradition du récit fantastique pour se transformer en une charge terrible et émouvante contre l’indifférence.

Tu redeviendras poussière

Martina Chumova

Simon Boulerice

Lili Boisvert

Mikella Nicol

Véronique Grenier

Ariane Lessard

Stéphanie Boulay

Martine Delvaux

Roseline Lambert

Patrick Watson

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

Jolène Ruest

Rose-Aimée Automne T. Morin

Coco Belliveau

Stella Adjokê

Léa Stréliski

Mélodie Nelson

une œuvre collective

Ce qu'un jeune mari devrait savoir

Il était une fois un ours et un Tzigane, une troupe de clones du grand Noureev, des anges descendant du ciel par milliers le jour du Débarquement, des bébés que l'on ramasse sur la plage à marée basse, une androïde capable de goûter l'humour. La vie rêvée des grille-pain est un coffre aux trésors où entre un peu de magie, et où l'on trouve, pêle-mêle, des poupées et des animaux qui parlent, des bouteilles jetées à la mer, un soldat au coeur d'automate, des filles aux noms de fleurs et des enfants-oiseaux. Remarquable conteuse capable de broder les plus fines images à partir du matériau le plus brut, la Montréalaise Heather O'Neill signe un envoûtant florilège de contes de fées pour adultes, des histoires émouvantes, étranges et fantasques à déguster yeux grands ouverts, comme dans un rêve éveillé.

La Vie Rêvée des Grille-Pain

From the bestselling author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel, a spellbinding story about two young women whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the course of history Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At age twelve, with her pile of blond curls and unparalleled sense of whimsy, she's the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, the affluent strip of nineteenth-century Montreal where powerful families live. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly and brilliant, moves to the neighbourhood. Marie and Sadie are immediately inseparable. United by their passion and intensity, they attract and repel each other in ways that set them both on fire. Marie, with her bubbly charm, sees all the pleasure of the world, whereas Sadie's obsession with darkness is all-consuming. Soon, their childlike games take on the thrill of danger and then become deadly. Forced to separate, the girls spend their teenage years engaging in acts of alternating innocence and depravity, until a singular event unites them once more, with devastating effects. After Marie inherits her father's sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city's gritty underworld, the working class begins to foment a revolution. Each woman will play an unexpected role in the events that upend their city--the only question is whether they will find each other once more. From the beloved Giller Prize-shortlisted author who writes "like a sort of demented angel with an uncanny knack for metaphor" (Toronto Star), When We Lost Our Heads is a page-turning novel that explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying strength of the human heart when it can't let someone go.

In het Canada van begin 20e eeuw groeien een jongen en een meisje op in een weeshuis waar ze zich sterk tot elkaar aangetrokken voelen en als ze elkaar jaren later weer ontmoeten, blijkt hun liefde nog steeds te bestaan.

Hotel Lonely Hearts

Jen Kramer

Your idea is going to be BIG. You know it. But before you hire your favorite developer to go build it, take a step back. Creating a brand-new product is a risk; many of them fail within their first year. Is there a proven way to set yourself up for success? Yes! All it takes is some preparation. By taking the time to do upfront validation, planning and iterating before you build, you can set your product on the path to success. Not sure how to do all that? Lucky for you, you've got the blueprint right here in your hands. Written by two industry veterans - a business consultant /owner and a web designer /developer - this book outlines all the steps you need to create a product that truly thrives. So take your big idea and dive right in - we're certain you'll emerge with a better, more successful product at the end.

Heather O'Neill

About

Books

Join the club