Nancy Jo Cullen
“I love and am inspired by the work of Suzette Mayr, who received much well-deserved attention for her fourth novel, Monoceros, but each of Mayr’s novels is a funny, topical, and fearless exploration of the subject at hand. The Widows, Mayr’s second novel, is populated by old ladies who are difficult, fully sexual, and adventurous souls determined to make it over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Grandmother Hannelore makes out with sixty-something technician Hamish in the bowels of Calgary’s Jubilee auditorium, while her sister Clotilde carries on a passionate affair with Frau Schnadelhuber. Cleopatra Maria, Hannelore’s genius (albeit confused) mixed race granddaughter, drives the women across the country toward the Falls while Mayr delivers us a saucy road story that sparkles with her wicked ability to tackle difficult issues with humour. Mayr’s work is always a delightful and challenging read and I urge you to read all of her novels. Suzette Mayr is truly a unique voice.”
The 2010 winner of the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBT Writers, Nancy Jo Cullen’s stories have appeared in The Puritan, Prairie Fire, Grain, Plenitude, filling Station, The New Quarterly, This magazine, and The Journey Prize Anthology 24 and 26. She has published three collections of poetry. Canary, her most recent book, won the 2012 Metcalf-Rooke Award. She’s currently at work on her second book of fiction, a series of linked stories with the working title Mea Culpa.
