About
the Author
Holley Rubinsky, winner of the prestigious Journey Prize Gold Medal Award, divides her time between Toronto and Kaslo, B.C. She is the author of Rapid Transits and Other Stories, and is a master of the Usui System of Reiki Healing.
At First I Hope for Rescue was published in the New Face of Fiction program in 1997.
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Books by
this author
At First I Hope for Rescue (Vintage Canada, 1997)
At First I Hope for Rescue (Knopf Canada, 1997)
Rapid Transits and Other Stories (Polestar Publishing, 1990)
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Literary
Awards
- Winner
of the Journey Prize Gold Medal Award (Rapid Transits
and Other Stories)
- Shortlisted
for the 1998 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (BC Book Prize)
for At First I Hope for Rescue
-
A Quill & Quire Best Book of 1997 (At First
I Hope for Rescue)
- Maclean's
Editor's Picks for Best Summer Reading (At First
I Hope for Rescue)
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Book Reviews and Quotes
Praise for Rapid Transits
"Holley Rubinsky's writing is thrillingly original, both in style and content… ruthlessly honest… her prose crackles with quick energy and sharp humour… a most impressive debut. It is refreshing to see a writer with this much reverence for language and a willingness to take risks. The stories are immensely entertaining and the characters a welcome change from the priveleged navel gazers who inhabit so much of current ficiton."
-Kate Fillion, The Toronto Star
"Excellent… Holley Rubinsky speaks to her reader in the various voices of the characters she creates, always movingly, always realistically. A remarkable tour de force… memorable. Rubinsky's writing has a warm relaxed colloquialism about it and is full of effective images, tragic and funny at the same time. There is a tacit and melancholy lament for passing youth that gives [these stories] a special poignancy."
-Books in Canada
Praise for At First I Hope for Rescue
"Rubinsky has two great gifts as a writer. She slides under the skin of her characters and knowingly, willingly, exposes them, and yet she does so with great sensitivity. She also knows how to map their interior landscapes… Rubinsky's first collection, Rapid Transits and Other Stories won the prestigious Journey Prize in 1989. Hard as it may be to believe, this second collection of polished, amazing stories is even better."
-Monday Magazine
"[Rubinsky is] a tough and attentive writer [who] fashions stories about ordinary small-town people in a way that feels totally fresh… There are raw moments here, but there is also a wacky sort of pluck to the way the characters talk and stagger on with their lives that feels distinctly Canadian… Impressive."
-Maclean's
"These five long stories [have] the power of ambush… Through her memorable characters, Rubinsky reveals the strangeness of humans and the heart-rending drama of ordinary survival… Complicated and profound… the overall impression is one of revelation in these affecting, fascinating stories."
-The Vancouver Sun
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Links
to Extra Resources
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