Why read The Beggar's Garden?

Book cover of The Beggar's Garden: Stories, The

Book description

Longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize

Critically lauded, The Beggar’s Garden is a brilliantly surefooted, strikingly original collection of nine linked short stories that will delight as well as disturb. The stories follow a diverse group of curiously interrelated characters, from bank manager to crackhead to retired Samaritan to…

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Short story collections

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Beggar's Garden as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Chris Benjamin

Author

Christie’s stories are set in downtown eastside Vancouver, a neighbourhood notorious for junkies and homelessness. Of course, the realities are much more diverse.

These stories focus not only on the down-and-out but also on shop owners and others trying to make a go there, the traumatic things they witness and experience, and the guilt of surviving there. In prose that is sharp and witty, yet evocative and illuminating, he shows every character to be struggling, regardless of their situation.

It is a very real look at completely believable characters. And he sees them very clearly, shows their humanity, and finds…

From Chris' list on The best contemporary North American short story collections that find the beauty in hard-ass, hard-luck cases.