Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew

A man reflects on family memories—that may or may not be true—in this novel of “sharply composed vignettes with a keen sense of timing and humor” (Publishers Weekly).

Ben is an artist closing in on forty, and it’s hard for him to be sure about the past. His parents are both dead, and his brother, who has mental issues, is a lousy source of information. So when Ben finds himself with a particularly persistent memory that keeps nagging at him, he doesn’t know where to turn to answer the question: Did his mother really assassinate a prominent neo-Nazi?

In a novel that “shows maturity of vision without sacrificing the childish sense of play and absurdity his readers expect from him,” Stuart Ross sends Ben ranging through childhood summers at an Ontario cottage, teenage alienation in a Toronto suburb, a disastrous college career, and the calamity that precipitates his brother’s institutionalization—as he tries to sort through the events of his life, both real and surreal (The Globe and Mail, Toronto).

“A writer with an original sensibility.” —The Vancouver Sun