The Shadow Boxer

Proof copy. 8vo. Pp. [x], 392. Printed card covers. B/w map of the Great Lakes. An earlier version of a section originally appeared under the title 'Finals' in the anthology Turn of the Story: Canadian Short Fiction on the Eve of the Millennium (House of Anansi, 1999).

Canadian author's seventh book and first novel. Governor General's Award nominee in 1995 for his poetry collection, The Ecstasy of Skeptics [sic], a prize he subsequently won with his 2016 collection The Waking Comes Late. A portrait of an innocent abroad, a poet and boxer from the 'Soo', whose sexual and professional escapades take him as far as Egypt.

"The ghosts of Jack London, Thomas Wolfe, and Jack Kerouac all hover approvingly over... [this] terrific first novel... One of the finest coming-of-age tales of recent years, and a splendid novelistic debut by a writer who seems to be just now entering a most impressive maturity." –Kirkus Reviews