Heidi Sopinka

Ivory Frame, now in her nineties, is the famously reclusive painter. She has never married, never had a family, never had a child. So when a letter arrives disclosing that she has a granddaughter living in New York, her world is turned upside down and the past is brought painfully to life. Masterfully written, and emotionally charged, this novel is about love and grief and art and the realization that, like tragedy, the best things in life arrive out of the blue. Residence: Toronto, ON. Print run 5,000.

A Novel

The Dictionary of Animal Languages

Out of the explosive 1970s L.A. art scene comes a riveting novel about creativity, death, and reinvention that follows two artists--one dies mysteriously, and the other takes her place Paz, an ambitious young artist, is drawn to Romy, one of the only women to break into the male-dominated art scene of 1970s California. She is also drawn to Romy's husband, Billy, an enigmatic art star. When Romy dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances, Billy is left unmoored, caring for their newborn. Leaving New York and grad school behind, Paz takes on the mantle of Romy's life and steps into a ghostly love triangle. When Paz attempts to claim her creative life, strange things start to happen--photographs move, an unexplained postcard arrives, and an unsettling journal entry begins to blur the line between art and life. As Paz becomes increasingly obsessed with the woman she has replaced and the absent man she has married, a disturbing picture begins to emerge, driving her deep into the desert to uncover the truth. Astonishing and profound, Utopia affirms Heidi Sopinka as one of the most exhilarating voices in Canadian literature. A propulsive mix of desire, friendship, and betrayal, Utopia illuminates a crucible moment for art and feminism, which still reverberates today. This is both a visionary love story and a feminist manifesto that will leave you altered.

Utopia

A thrillingly elegant yet raw evocation of a woman clawing her way to a creative life, inspired by the story of surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. We grant men a right to solitude. Why can’t we do the same for women? Born into a wealthy family in northern England and sent to boarding school to be educated by nuns, Ivory Frame rebels. She escapes to inter-war Paris, where she finds herself through art, and falls in with the most brilliantly bohemian set: the surrealists. Torn between an intense love affair with a married Russian painter and her soaring ambition to create, Ivory’s life is violently interrupted by the Second World War. She flees from Europe, leaving behind her friends, her art, and her love. Now over ninety, Ivory labours defiantly in the frozen north on her last, greatest work — a vast account of animal languages — alone except for her sharp research assistant, Skeet. And then unexpected news from the past arrives: this magnificently fervent, complex woman is told that she has a grandchild, despite never having had a child of her own …

Heidi Sopinka

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