Twenty-One Cardinals

We're nothing like other families. We are self-made. We are an essence unto ourselves, unique and dissonant, the only members of our species. Livers of humdrum lives who flitted around us got their wings burned. We're not mean, but we can bare our teeth. People didn't hang around when a band of Cardinals made its presence known.

With twenty-one kids, the Cardinal family is a force of nature. And now, after not being in the same room for decades, they're congregating to celebrate their father, a prospector who discovered the zinc mine their now-deserted hometown in northern Quebec was built around. But as the siblings tell the tales of their feral childhood, we discover that Ang le, the only Cardinal with a penchant for happiness, has gone missing - although everyone has pretended not to notice for years. Why the silence? What secrets does the mine hold?


Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Coach House Books
Published: 06/09/2015
ISBN: 9781552453070
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.60d
Award: Governor General's Literary Awards - Winner

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 08/10/2015