In Greedy Little Eyes, award-winning writer Billie Livingston explores the universal craving for connection, both emotional and physical. A Vintage Canada trade paperback original.

A young misfit is assaulted by a delusional homeless man and subsequently finds herself caught in the middle of two bullying cops who invite her to hit back; an impulsive and restless mother hungers for independence but wants company along the way; a middle-aged man who yearns for a life off the grid rejects his family and heads into the woods with a young bohemian while he slowly loses his mind; a journalist questions her scruples and complicity after she is invited to visit a friend in New York who is in the midst of an affair with a married man.

Fiercely independent, yet struggling to fit in, isolated but exploding with love and longing, Livingston's characters whisper and roar as they wrestle with the notion of "normal."

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Praise for Billie Livingston:
"Livingston's characters are scrappers. They're canny and sharp and share a dark streak of humour that comes from the love of family and the communal understanding of knowing who is the enemy."
— New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal

"Livingston has made her rep as one of the most dangerous writers you will ever be lucky enough to encounter."
— Vancouver Review

"Livingston writes beautifully, even soulfully."
— January Magazine

"[Billie]'s a damn solid writer who will make your head spin and your knees buckle. . . . She has a way of capturing the push and pull of family dynamics, and demonstrating the way some fleeting events can linger with us like bleeding tattoos."
— Broken Pencil

“Livingston leavens heartache with air and light, injecting the story of a daughter free-falling since her mother’s death with charm to burn. And her own little daughter, Dusty, is a particularly delicious creation.”
— Zsuzsi Gartner (on “Georgia, It’s Me”)
 
“Livingston’s writing is evocative and richly layered. Hers is a poetic voice, and each of her characters is deeply drawn with a minimum of words. Rather, actions characterize each, and those actions spring from what we feel is the essence of good writing: psychological and emotional truth.”
— Other Voices (on “Did You Grow Up With Money?”)

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Before I Would Ever Hurt You
Make Yourself Feel Better
Candy From a Stranger’s Mouth
You’re Taking All the Fun Out of It
Clown Lessons
Did You Grow Up With Money?
Do Not Touch
Greedy Little Eyes
You Sound Tiny
Georgia, It’s Me
 
Acknowledgements
Publication History

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BILLIE LIVINGSTON published her critically acclaimed first novel, Going Down Swinging, in 2000. Her first book of poetry, The Chick at the Back of the Church, was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award. Her second novel, Cease to Blush, was a Globe and Mail Best Book. Her award-winning short fiction has been published in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. Born in Toronto, Livingston now lives in Vancouver.

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