Hider/Seeker

The Globe 100 (The Globe & Mail's favourite books of 2018). Silver IPPY Award (Independent Publisher Book Awards). Hider/Seeker is the debut fiction collection from award-winning poet Jen Currin. These stories are about addiction and meditation, relationships and almost-relationships, solitude and sexuality. They take place in cafes, in snowy woods, on city street corners, and at Zen retreats - where conversations happen in the margins of books and filthy shoes are treated with reverence. Ex-wives reunite only to be confronted with their past; an aunt believes she has made a heart-breaking discovery about her niece; a seemingly never-ending hysterical pregnancy becomes the talk of a cafe. These stories are always unflinchingly honest in their portrayal of relationships - in particular the relationships of the book's LGBTQ+ characters - as they navigate spirituality, monogamy, and sex. Currin invites the reader into the complicated lives of her characters and invites them to stay.