Kelli Deeth

The Other Side of Youth, Kelli Deeth’s first book since her acclaimed 2001 debut The Girl Without Anyone, is a collection of stories about missed connections and unrequited desire, in which characters struggle internally and with each other over issues such as marriage, childlessness, adoption, adolescent longing, friendship, and death.

In "Vera’s Room," the narrator, unable to conceive, negotiates a tense relationship with the seven-year-old girl she and her husband have adopted. In "Embrace," Theresa, a young woman who has just had an abortion and is trying to survive alone in the big city, decides to give up on sexual desire and love a man, a divorced father, who can provide her with safety. And in "Sis," Jenny moves back to Toronto from Winnipeg in order to start her life over and reconnect with her step-brother, with whom she shares a complicated past.

These are stories about the vagaries of family and the narrow chasm between longing and grief; with a deft hand and a knowing eye, Kelli Deeth creates stories that are devastating, incisive portraits of dysfunction and desire.