Includes Author-Curated Discussion Questions!
The reunited Lund siblings, separated as children by Social Services, find that family, whether held together by blood or by choice, can be both a curse and a blessing, an obstacle and a point of connection.
Set in Vancouver during the economically turbulent year of 2008, A Brief View from the Coastal Suite explores the Lunds' differing values in respect to relationships, money, and environment – all markers for a materialistic society that is becoming increasingly inhospitable. Cleo struggles to find time for her challenging job as an architectural designer and for the demands of her family; Mandalay, an artist and single parent, tries to raise her twin sons uncontaminated by the materialistic values of their lawyer father; and Cliff attempts to run a landscape company with his spoiled younger brother, Ben, and to accommodate the ever-increasing demands of his Estonian mail-order bride.
Karen Hofmann’s brilliant sequel to her novel What is Going to Happen Next skillfully explores societal attitudes and the instability of personal and public lives in a world that values money above all else.
Includes
Author-Curated Discussion Questions!
The
reunited Lund siblings, separated as children by Social Services, find that
family, whether held together by blood or by choice, can be both a curse and a
blessing, an obstacle and a point of connection.
Set in Vancouver during the economically turbulent year of 2008, A Brief View from the Coastal Suite explores the Lunds' differing values in respect to relationships, money, and environment – all markers for a materialistic society that is becoming increasingly inhospitable. Cleo struggles to find time for her challenging job as an architectural designer and for the demands of her family; Mandalay, an artist and single parent, tries to raise her twin sons uncontaminated by the materialistic values of their lawyer father; and Cliff attempts to run a landscape company with his spoiled younger brother, Ben, and to accommodate the ever-increasing demands of his Estonian mail-order bride.
Karen Hofmann’s brilliant sequel to her novel What is Going to Happen Next skillfully explores societal attitudes and the instability of personal and public lives in a world that values money above all else.
Book details
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About the author
Karen Hofmann
Karen Hofmann grew up in the Okanagan Valley and is an associate professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia. A first collection of poetry, Water Strider, was published by Frontenac House in 2008 and shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay prize. Her first novel, After Alice, was published by NeWest Press in 2014, and a second novel, What is Going to Happen Next, in 2017. A short fiction collection, Echolocation, was released by NeWest in April 2019. Karen Hofmann writes about rural British Columbia and especially the B.C. Interior. Her poems have been shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes, and she has won the Okanagan Short Fiction contest three times. She writes about place and landscape, and is interested in the ways in which individuals and social groups respond and adapt to change.
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