Sharon Butala

Finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Award for Fiction A much-praised collection of short stories about old woman, from acclaimed writer Sharon Butala Writing at the top of her game, Sharon Butala returns to the short story in this astounding new collection. In Butala's world, the season of fury and wonder is the season of old age. The stories in this book are the stories of women who have had experiences; women who have seen much of life and have felt the joy of success and the sting of shortcomings; women who hold opinions and come to conclusions about the lives they've lived. But Sharon Butala gives us more -- not only is each story an observation on aging, each story in Season of Fury and Wonder pays tribute to a classic work of literature that has had an impact on Butala's writing. Among these writers are Raymond Carver, Willa Cather, Flannery O'Connor, John Cheever, James Joyce, Shirley Jackson, Anton Chekhov, Alan Sillitoe, Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe. The result of Butala's effort is a series of deeply felt tributes to these writers, to the creativity and their power to inspire.

Season of Fury and Wonder

An intimate and uplifting book about finding renewal and hope through grief and loss. “It was a terrible life; it was an enchanted life; it was a blessed life. And, of course, one day it ended.” —Sharon Butala In the tradition of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Diana Athill’s Somewhere Towards the End, and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal comes a revelatory new book from one of our beloved writers. When Sharon Butala’s husband, Peter, died unexpectedly, she found herself with no place to call home. Torn by grief and loss, she fled the ranchlands of southwest Saskatchewan and moved to the city, leaving almost everything behind. A lifetime of possessions was reduced to a few boxes of books, clothes, and keepsakes. But a lifetime of experience went with her, and a limitless well of memory—of personal failures, of a marriage that everybody said would not last but did, of the unbreakable bonds of family. Reinventing herself in an urban landscape was painful, and facing her new life as a widow tested her very being. Yet out of this hard-won new existence comes an astonishingly frank, compassionate and moving memoir that offers not only solace and hope but inspiration to those who endure profound loss. Often called one of this country’s true visionaries, Sharon Butala shares her insights into the grieving process and reveals the small triumphs and funny moments that kept her going. Where I Live Now is profound in its understanding of the many homes women must build for themselves in a lifetime.

A Journey Through Love and Loss to Healing and Hope

Where I Live Now

In 1961, a country singer named Johnny Cash chose a beautiful young woman named Alexandra Wiwcharuk to be his "Girl in Saskatoon" and sang to her in front of a hometown crowd. A few months later she would be found brutally murdered on the banks of the Saskatchewan River. As Sharon Butala notes, "An entire city came to a stop." Her high school friend Alex had dreamed of becoming a glamorous stewardess; she had been crowned a beauty queen in local pageants; she was about to graduate as a nurse. Her brutal killing became a touchstone moment for Saskatoon residents: years later, people could still remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the news. Why was Alex's murder so haunting? And why did Sharon Butala return some 40 years later to reconstruct Alex's life and search for answers?

a meditation on friendship, memory and murder

The girl in Saskatoon

Wild Rose

From the author of the recent Governor General's nominee in Nonfiction, Where I Live Now, comes a new mystery novel.Fiona Lychenko - now a woman in her late sixties - has spentyears researching the death of her high school classmate ZaraStanley, who was brutally murdered at the age of twenty.Determined to solve the crime - something the police weren't ableto do - Fiona interviewed everyone she could in her hometown ofRipley, but every trail led to the same dead end. She even publishedher findings in a book, hoping it would lead to anonymous cluesfrom readers and outliers, and still - nothing. Now, a decade later,Fiona has finally given up hope that the killer would ever be caught.That is until a brown manila envelope turns up under her door andFiona once again finds herself embroiled in the midst of a controversyso intricate and tangled that one wrong move could be her undoing.Based on the true story of the murder of Alexandra Wiwcharuk in1962 in Saskatoon, Zara's Dead is the fictional retelling of a very realstory, one that has captivated the public and eluded answers for decades.

Zara's Dead

Three prairie women search for fulfilment in this extraordinary glimpse into the female psyche.

Luna

A collection of essays on women and aging from Canadian legend Sharon Butala "What I didn't have a clue about was that I was soon to be old, or what being old would mean to my dreams and desires. While dreading old age with every fibre, I was at the same time in full denial that it would ever happen to me, and so, was shocked down to the soles of my feet when it did." In this incisive collection, Sharon Butala reflects on the ways her life has changed as she's grown old. She knows that society fails the elderly massively, and so she tackles ageism and loneliness, friendship and companionship. She writes with pointed wit and acerbic humour about dinner parties and health challenges and forgetfulness and complicated family relationships and the pandemic -- and lettuce. And she tells her story with the tremendous skill and beauty of a writer who has masterfully honed her craft over the course of her storied four-decade career. Butala gives us a book to be cherished -- an elegant and expansive look at the complexities and desires of aging and the aged, standing in stark contrast to the stereotyped, simplistic portrayals of the elderly in our culture. This Strange Visible Air is a true gift.

Essays on Aging and the Writing Life

This Strange Visible Air

Four years later, chaos threatens to engulf Chloe herself when she realizes that her husband is in love with another woman. Rather than join Doug on an academic sojourn in Scotland and try to win back his love, she returns to Saskatchewan, the land of her French- and Anglo-Canadian ancestors. Ironically, Chloe's avoidance of the present forces a confrontation with the past.

A Novel

Upstream

Fiona Lychenko, now a woman in her late sixties, has spent years researching the death of her high school classmate Zara Stanley, who was brutally murdered at the age of twenty. Determined to solve the crime, something the police weren’t able to do, Fiona interviewed everyone she could in her hometown of Ripley, but every trail led to the same dead end. She even published her findings in a book, hoping it would lead to anonymous clues from readers and outliers, and still, nothing. Now, a decade later, Fiona has finally given up hope that the killer would ever be caught. That is until a brown manila envelope turns up under her door and Fiona once again finds herself embroiled in the midst of a controversy so intricate and tangled that one wrong move could be her undoing. Inspired by the unsolved murder of a young girl in 1962 in Saskatoon, Zara’s Dead is the fictional retelling of a very real story, one that has captivated the public and eluded answers for decades.

When it was first published, The Perfection of the Morning catapulted Sharon Butala into literary stardom, causing the Toronto Star to crown her as "one of this country's true visionaries." At once a meditation on the world of nature and a personal and spiritual exploration of the roots of creativity, The Perfection of the Morning is Sharon Butala's search for a connection with the prairie that encompassed and often overwhelmed her. More resonant today than ever before, The Perfection of the Morning is a book for Butala's many loyal readers, as well as the perfect introduction for new fans.

Perfection Of The Morning

“There are things that it is impossible to learn when you are young, no matter how much you read and study.” The season of fury and wonder, in Sharon Butala’s world, is the old age of women. These stories present the lives of old women – women of experience, who’ve seen much of life, who’ve tasted of its sweetness and its bitter possibilities, and have developed opinions and come to conclusions about what it all amounts to. These are stories of today’s old women, who understand that they have been created by their pasts. But there’s another layer to this standard-setting example of “cronelit.” Not content to rest on her considerable literary laurels, Sharon Butala continues to push the boundaries of her art. The stories in Season of Fury and Wonder are all reactions to other, classic, works of literature that she has encountered and admired. These stories are, in their various ways, inspired by and tributes to works by the likes of Raymond Carver, Willa Cather, James Joyce, Shirley Jackson, Flannery O’Conner, John Cheever, Alan Sillitoe, Ernest Hemmingway, Tim O’Brien, Edgar Allan Poe and Anton Checkov.

Like its phenomenally popular predecessor, The Perfection of the Morning, Wild Stone Heart has once again touched a chord with Canadian readers, becoming another #1 bestseller. It's no wonder -- this resonant and deeply moving exploration of a seemingly ordinary field in southwest Saskatchewan is at once an ancient mystery, a lyrical journey between past and present, a fascinating lesson in natural history, and a woman's intimate search for her own place in the world. With every book, Butala delicately carves new and uncharted spiritual geography. Wild Stone Heart is no exception, a classic work that will appeal to all of her many fans.

Wild Stone Heart

Now in the attractive and popular new PerennialCanada format, Lunais bestselling author Sharon Butala’s second brilliant novel in her looselylinked trilogy that begins with The Gates of the Sun, and ends with TheFourth Archangel. Selling out its first printing within months when it wasfirst re-issued in 1994, this is a classic Sharon Butala novel. Luna is the story of three prairie women at the crossroads of theirlives. Rhea, still strong and proud at 80, contemplates her death, and herpioneer life, the years of loneliness she endured, tears seeping from her bodywhile she kneaded her loaves of bread. Selena, Rhea’s niece, struggling tocome to terms with her teenaged daughter’s pregnancy, wonders if her way oflife is changing forever. And Diane, Selena’s sister, until now a womancloaked in the busy fabric of farming life suppers, chores and gardening, leavesfor the city on a search for freedom, for identity and for self. Each of them isinexorably a part of the vast prairie landscape, its seemingly spare geographyin reality as rich and varied as the inner lives of its inhabitants. Luna resonates with our constant, passionate and often mysticalstruggle to love the land, conquer it, abandon it, and most of all, rediscoverourselves within it.

Luna Reissue Tpb

Wild Rose, an epic story of The West, now long gone, charts Sophie’s journey from underloved child in religion-bound rural Quebec, to headstrong young woman to exhausted homesteader to deserted bride and mother to independent businesswoman finding her way in a hostile, if beautiful, landscape.

The perfection of the novel: a sweeping tale of a woman's loss and discovery from the best-selling author of The Perfection of the Morning. Sharon Butala achieved that magical combination of critical acclaim and popular sales success with her #1 national bestseller, The Perfection of the Morning (over 50,000 copies sold). Now, in what many are predicting will be her most powerful novel ever, Sharon Butala returns to Perfection territory in a profoundly moving tale of two generations of western women and their search to heal themselves. A farm woman like her mother and her grandmother before her, Iris finds her comfortable rhythm of prairie life shattered forever when her husband dies suddenly. She begins a search for the niece she raised as a daughter, but has not seen for ten years. Lannie, fleeing from her own past, is desperately trying to save others -- and herself -- in the drought-ravaged deserts of Ethiopia. In her quest for Lannie, Iris must come to terms with her rage, her longing for love and the inexorable truths of nature. The Garden of Eden is a transforming story that travels deep into the heart of contemporary womanhood and challenges the myth of the West. A search for redemption in a landscape on the edge of ruin, The Garden of Eden is a passionate testament to Sharon Butala's immense talent as a writer and interpreter of our own search for a place in the world.

Sharon Butala

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