Norman Bray, in the Performance of His Life — Trevor Cole

Finalist for the Governor General’s Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Canada and Caribbean region)

A Globe and Mail Notable Book of the Year

For years, Toronto stage actor Norman Bray has renounced all responsibility in the name of his “art.” Now, middle-aged, teetering on the edge of financial ruin, and clinging to the faded light of his career, Norman must answer to the bank, to the adult children of his recently deceased common-law wife, and, most of all, to his own illusions about himself. Making matters worse, Amy, his stepdaughter-of-a-sort, discovers her late mother’s journals and the unhappiness they contain. Meanwhile, Norman finds himself embroiled in the affairs of an attractive neighbour, with unexpected consequences. Highly original, skewering, hilarious, humane, Trevor Cole’s brilliant debut looks at the precarious ties of love and family and the plight of a man who has reached the end of the line — and has only himself to blame.