The Push & the Pull

Andrew Day embarks on a bicycle trip from Halifax to Kingston, his childhood home. As he goes, the dual narratives of Andrew's life emerge: the slow, painful death of his father and the disappearance of Betty, who may be lost to him forever. He contemplates, too, the nature of desire.

En route, Andrew sloughs off his fears, material goods, and attachments. In episodes of intensifying violence, he leaves the highway and rides the back roads under the cover of night. By the time he arrives home, an epiphany greets him.

Darryl Whetter writes with compelling intensity of athleticism and degeneration, isolation and community, the weight of desire and the joy and anguish present in all things.

Darryl Whetter is the author of A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, named by the Globe and Mail as one of the top 100 books for 2003. His stories have appeared in Best Canadian Stories '05, the Fiddlehead, Prism International, broken pencil, Zygote, Exile, the Danforth Review, and the New Quarterly. He is a regular guest on CBC Radio's Talking Books and a contributor to the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, the Toronto Star, and the Chronicle Herald.