Country of Cold ─ Stories

Set in the beautiful, often uncompromising isolation of the central plains of North America, Kevin Patterson’s haunting stories explore the extent to which geography is destiny. In "Les is More" an overweight bartender determines to break the monotony of his life by curling up in a steel barrel and going over the local waterfalls. In "The Perseid Shower" a son reflects on his father's passion for meteor showers and all he failed to understand about his father's galaxy. In "Boatbuilding," a lonely divorcee builds a vessel with which she hopes to leave behind one life and drop anchor in another. And in the final story, characters from across the collection make a curious but moving connection at their high school reunion in Dunsmuir, Manitoba.

Author of the acclaimed memoir The Water in Between—a New York Times Notable Book—Kevin Patterson has poured his narrative gifts, his familiarity with the natural world, and a delicate understanding of human nature, into a striking fiction debut.

Kevin Patterson grew up in Manitoba, and put himself through medical school by enlisting in the Canadian army. When his service was up, he worked as a doctor in the Arctic and on the coast of British Columbia while studying for his MFA. He is the author of the bestselling The Water in Between. He resides on Salt Spring Island.