Shashi Bhat

A Chatelaine Summer Reads pick. Named one of the most anticipated books of the fall by CBC Books and 49th Shelf. Journey Prize winner Shashi Bhat's sharp, darkly comic, and poignant story about a high school student's traumatic experience and how it irrevocably alters her life, for fans of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Girlhood, and Pen15. Bright, hilarious, and sensitive fourteen-year-old Nina spends her spare time reading Beowulf and flirting with an internet predator. She has a vicious crush on her English teacher, and her best friend Amy is slowly drifting away. Meanwhile, Nina's mother tries to match her up with local Indian boys unfamiliar with her Saved by the Bell references, and Nina's worried father has started reciting Hindu prayers outside her bedroom door. Beginning with a disturbing incident at her high school, THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE ON EARTH tells stories of Nina's life from the '90s to present day, when she returns to the classroom as a high school teacher with a haunting secret and discovers that the past is never far behind her. Darkly funny, deeply affecting, unsettling, and at times even shocking, Shashi Bhat's irresistible novel-in-stories examines the relationships between those who take and those who have something taken. THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE ON EARTH is a sharp-edged and devastating look at how women are conditioned to hide their trauma and suppress their fear, loneliness, and anger, and an unforgettable portrait of how silence can shape a life.

The Most Precious Substance on Earth

Most Precious Substance on Earth

A Chatelaine Summer Reads pick. Named one of the most anticipated books of the fall by CBC Books and 49th Shelf. Journey Prize winner Shashi Bhat’s sharp, darkly comic, and poignant story about a high school student's traumatic experience and how it irrevocably alters her life, for fans of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Girlhood, and Pen15. Bright, hilarious, and sensitive fourteen-year-old Nina spends her spare time reading Beowulf and flirting with an internet predator. She has a vicious crush on her English teacher, and her best friend Amy is slowly drifting away. Meanwhile, Nina’s mother tries to match her up with local Indian boys unfamiliar with her Saved by the Bell references, and Nina’s worried father has started reciting Hindu prayers outside her bedroom door. Beginning with a disturbing incident at her high school, THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE ON EARTH tells stories of Nina’s life from the ‘90s to present day, when she returns to the classroom as a high school teacher with a haunting secret and discovers that the past is never far behind her. Darkly funny, deeply affecting, unsettling, and at times even shocking, Shashi Bhat’s irresistible novel-in-stories examines the relationships between those who take and those who have something taken. THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE ON EARTH is a sharp-edged and devastating look at how women are conditioned to hide their trauma and suppress their fear, loneliness, and anger, and an unforgettable portrait of how silence can shape a life.

Jm Landels

With A Foundations of Lies by cover artist Kris Sayer, we emerge from the dark woods with Tatterhood's loyal goat Bokki. Sword in hand (or mouth!), and fierce battle won, we are ready to take on the varied landscapes of this issue, no passport required. In 'The Library Giant' by feature author Shashi Bhat, the struggle with nature - human nature - rages deep within. Meanwhile, in British Columbia and Iceland, ghosts of grief wander with the living as KT Wagner, SL Leong, and Erin Wagner explore the rocky terrain of memory. And whether in a culvert or factory, but most certainly within one's own mind, Mike Gillis and Brandon Crilly remind us how difficult it can be to navigate wreckage of the heart. Forest, river, mountain, ocean - Mother Nature has a starring role in the winning stories for the 2020 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize: 'The Weeping Pools' and 'River's Thousand-One Voice' by Cadence Mandybura, and 'Glimpse of a Goddess' by Laura Kuhlmann. Poets Abner Porzio, with 'Californian Illusion', and Michael Penny, with 'Kalaloch Beach, WA', introduce us to two very different wild west coasts. Next, take flight and soar above it all with part three of Joseph Stilwell and Hugh Henderson's comic saga Blue Skies over Nine Isles. And finally, heroines Frankie Ray and Allaigna enter dangerous territory of their own as they search for clues to murder. In 'Sleuth With Star Quality' by Mel Anastasiou, Frankie Ray dons a disguise and braves a brothel. And in 'The Killing Ground', the second part of Allaigna's Song: Oburakor by JM Landels, Allaigna buries the dead in a blood-soaked wasteland.

Issue 29

Pulp Literature Winter 2021

When Mira Acharya’s father dies, the challenges facing her Indo-Canadian family become that much more daunting. Ravi, her autistic older brother, requires special care but longs to be just like other children. Their mother must work full time to keep a roof over their heads and still make time to be a parent to an over-achiever and a developmentally challenged child. As much as Mira loves her mother and brother, she resents the situations in which living with them places her. It is only when Mira is older that she realizes a truth she has been missing all along: though her family’s experience may be unusual, what holds them together – has always held them together – is universal. Shashi Bhat’s debut novel, The Family Took Shape, is a touching, hilarious, and endearingly honest story about one unique family’s search for happiness in Canadian suburbia.

Shashi Bhat

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