Dual Citizens

All her life, Lark Brossard has felt invisible, overshadowed by the people around her: first by her temperamental mother, Marianne; then by her sister, Robin, a brilliantly talented pianist as wild as the animals she loves; and finally by Lawrence Wheelock, a renowned filmmaker who is both Lark's employer and her occasional lover. When Wheelock denies her what she longs for most - a child - Lark is forced to re-examine a life marked by unrealized ambitions and thwarted desires. As she takes charge of her destiny, Lark comes to rely on Robin in ways she never could have imagined.

In this meditation on motherhood, sisterhood, desire, and self-knowledge, Alix Ohlin traces the rich and complex path towards fulfillment as an artist and a human being.

PRAISE FOR ALIX OHLIN AND INSIDE: Finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize An Amazon.ca Best Books: Editors' Picks An Amazon.ca Best Books: Top 10 Canadian Fiction A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book A Quill & Quire Books of the Year An Oprah's Book Club Summer Reading Pick An iTunes Store Best Book of 2012 A Heather's Pick "Vividly pictorial . . . Ohlin has as unsettling an old soul as Leonard Cohen's." - Globe and Mail "A superb second novel . . . next to brilliant phrases and scenes of laugh-eliciting satiric jabs, there are brutal, heartbreaking circumstances." - National Post "Can any of us really save another person? Or is each of us solely responsible for his or her own life? That's the question lurking behind Alix Ohlin's astute novel." - O, The Oprah Magazine "A skillful storyteller . . . attractively quick-witted and wry." - J. M. Coetzee "Ohlin has a great eye, a great ear, and all the other equipment auguring a very successful future." - Jay McInerney "Ohlin displays a profound empathy for people at their least rational - and most human." - Entertainment Weekly "Wondrously engrossing." - Boston Globe "[Alix] Ohlin makes us care." - Guelph Mercury "A twisty, clever, and captivating read . . . this cunning writer yanks you inside her world." - San Francisco Chronicle "A serious literary talent." - Washington Times "Expect to hear her spoken of in the same reverent breath as Lorrie Moore and Joy Williams." - Heidi Julavits "Ohlin writes in elegant prose that is flush with wit and style, as clever and as smooth as Lorrie Moore." - The Rumpus "The next big thing in North American literature." - Terry Rigelhof

PRAISE FOR ALIX OHLIN AND SIGNS AND WONDERS "Winning . . . tightly crafted . . . these snippets of life's upheavals highlight Ohlin's keen eye for observation." - Publishers Weekly "By the time you're through reading Signs and Wonders you'll be fully under Ohlin's spell." - FASHION "Unputdownable. It's the literary equivalent of a Paul Simon album: crisp, focused, lovely, and lasting. Ohlin's characters are so genuine you'll be reminded of people you know, love, and hate." - Marie Claire "Intense and beautifully shaped." - Boston Globe "A writer who should be famous" - Globe and Mail "Impressive . . . with enjoyably mordant humour and a surgical hand with relationship dissection, Ohlin examines the corrosion-prone faces of love." - National Post "Wise and whimsical . . . there's plenty of playfulness and warmth throughout these stories, but there's plenty of insight, too." - O, The Oprah Magazine "These closely worked stories about life on earth - they soar. They do." - NPR "I'll come right out and say it: Read this!" - Montreal Gazette Quill & Quire "Conversational, irreverent, and stealthily humorous . . . [Ohlin blends] pathos with acerbic wit." - Quill & Quire

ALIX OHLIN is the author of four books, most recently the novel Inside, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, and many other publications. Born and raised in Montreal, she lives in Vancouver, where she chairs the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia.