Luck

author
Joan Barfoot

the spiel
Ever thought about moving to Canada?  Well, with George W. here and Joan Barfoot there, I think we should all strongly consider it.  Barfoot’s newest book, Luck, is a masterpiece of voice and style.  A witty, bitingly-funny novel about the places we find love, life, death and happiness—namely our beds.  When Nora awakes one morning to find that her nearly-middle aged husband Phillip has died in his sleep, she is faced not only with a mountain of sudden loss coupled with logistical details pertaining to the practical side of death, but also with Sophie and Beth—the house keeper and artist’s model that the couple had employed.  Luck follows the three women over the course of the few days following Phillip’s death they struggle under the inescapable question: Now What?  A sharp, funny, and wholly original satire on mortality—don’t miss it.

some of the hype
"Luck took me right out of myself — I read it in one gulp, and it never let me down. Sharp and surprising but always responsible, no tricks for tricks’ sake; so satisfying, with its shifting and puzzles. So much fiction turns out to be diversion, in spite of fancy claims, and doesn’t really look at anything. Well — this does."
—Alice Munro

"Black-humoured and blessed as can be with literary acuity and acid wit, Luck [is] an often hilarious, insightful danse macabre [and] well worth the undertaking, especially for its ending…. Think Carol Shields with attitude."
—The Globe and Mail

Luck is a sustained, sardonic satire on mortality. . . . [Barfoot’s] observations are even-handed in their wisdom and acidity. She springs jokes and puns on you, her punctuation Sparkian in its fastidious exactitude and her eye for the quietly absurd unerring. . . . A black comedy that has a happy ending as temporary and random as luck itself."
—Independent

"With a reputation firmly established since 1978 by her award-winning first novel, Abra, Barfoot now wears fiction like a glove…. Luck is by turns sad, scary, quirky, and moving. It provides moments of high comedy…. The conclusion is near-Shakespearean … a fitting end to a deeply enjoyable novel."
—Quill & Quire

some other things this author has written
Critical Injuries
Dancing in the Dark
Getting Over Edgar
Some Things About Flying
Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch
Plain Jane
Duet for Three
Gaining Ground
Abra