EMWF Book Club: We Spread
Online Event
Join us for our February Book Club event featuring bestselling author Iain Reid in conversation with host Steven W. Beattie.
This event includes closed captioning.
Funded by the Government of Ontario
We Spread
By Iain Reid
Published by Simon & Schuster Canada
The author of the “evocative, spine-tingling, and razor-sharp” (Bustle) I’m Thinking of Ending Things that inspired the Netflix original movie and the “short, shocking psychological three-hander” (The Guardian) Foe returns with a new work of philosophical suspense.
Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents.”
Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny—with a growing sense of unrest and distrust—starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging, or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling?
At once compassionate and uncanny, told in spare, hypnotic prose, Iain Reid’s genre-defying third novel explores questions of conformity, art, productivity, relationships, and what, ultimately, it means to grow old.
POST-EVENT DISCUSSION
Want to discuss the book with fellow readers? Join our post-event discussion, hosted by the Guelph Public Library online on Wednesday February 22 at 7pm ET. Register here.
BUY THE BOOK
Need the book? Buy from one of our bookselling partners:
Guelph: The Bookshelf
Toronto: Another Story Bookshop
Kingston: Novel Idea
Ottawa: Octopus Books
Calgary: Shelf Life Books
Vancouver: Black Bond Books
Or, find your local independent bookstore using the Shop Local Button.
