Roost
From the jacket…
Claudia, a thirty-something single mom of two young kids, pines for the normalcy of her past independent life – but instead she’s finding bananas in her daughter’s sock drawer and cigarettes taped to her son’s wrestling figures. Then Claudia’s mother passes away unexpectedly. Suddenly, Claudia is the unlikely—and reluctant—glue holding the family together.
Shared through the hilarious, honest and often poignant perspective of a single mother, Roost is the story of a woman learning about motherhood and family while grieving the loss of her own mother. And as she begins to mend, she’s learning that she might even be able to accept her life and her home – just the way it is.
Released April 1, 2013
5.5 x 8.5 paperback
256 pages
ISBN 9781554811373
$21.95 CDN/US
Available in print and mobile formats:
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Praise for Roost
Ali Bryan works in that magical space between hilarity and humiliation. Roost is about the family tragedies we all face, with courage and cowardice and warmth and malice. This novel is marvelous, terrible fun. ~ Todd Babiak
Does every family need a daughter to do the emotional heavy-lifting? Irreverent and dead-on about the absurdities of motherhood and family, Claudia seems an unlikely fit for the role and fights it every messy inch of the way. Ali Bryan writes the tenderness and pathos of family life with the wise-cracking finesse of stand-up comedienne. Roost is laugh-out-loud funny – a refreshing debut. ~ Betty Jane Hegerat
Roost is hilarious. Ali Bryan is a master of deadpan delivery and is a seemingly endless source of deft one-liners. ~ Sue Sinclair, The National Post
…she has a standup’s knack for candid detail and dialogue, leading you to expect the expected, only to deliver the timely left hook that shatters it. ~ Carol Bruneau, The Chronicle Herald
As funny as it is smart. ~ Toronto Star
Bryan’s dialogue and character interaction are so spot on, and the rare occasion where she does take the chance and delves beneath the super funny surface of asshole-dom, she is dazzling. ~ Lee Kvern, The Winnipeg Review
