Giller Prize Nominee
Rowan Friesen has made a career of drug-dealing and small-time thievery on the outer edges of Saskatoon. Shiftless and seemingly friendless, he is, at first glance, an unlikely protagonist. But as Stolen unfolds, we learn the details of Rowan’s life: his well meaning but self-absorbed mother, his mentally ill father, and a high-school friendship both lustful and incendiary. This intriguing back-story runs alongside a current-day murder mystery, complete with road trips, arson, drink and drugs, tech nerds and the RCMP. Rowan Friesen may not be the world’s most likable character, but the complexity and honesty of his story is thrilling. Stolen’s lean, tight narrative tells a tale of theft, love, and madness on the Canadian prairie, and moves along like a half-ton pickup bouncing over dirt roads.
Praise for Stolen
Winner, Saskatchewan Book Awards (Best First Book, City of Saskatoon Book Award)
Globe & Mail Top 5 First Fiction
“Lapointe constructs the familiar world, the one inside each of us, in the lives of strangers. It’s what fiction does best.”
—The Globe & Mail
“It moves with the force of what’s right and true and must not be elided.”
—Giller Prize Jury
“ . . . despite the grim rural-dystopian setting of failing farms and strung-out teenagers and dysfunctional families, this is a novel of redemption.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
“It is invigorating to read a story that deals, without irony or apology, with the current generation of young Canadians.”
—Quill & Quire
“Stolen is a powerful and unconventional novel. It marks a very impressive debut.”
—Word Magazine
“It is, in fact, the taut craft of Stolen’s narrative and Lapointe’s profound evocation of place that makes this book truly stand out. … Lapointe has stepped out with a masterful debut.”
—subTerrain Magazine
Annette Lapointe was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on the coldest day of 1978, which might explain her ongoing affinity for the prairies. She lived in rural Saskatchewan, Quebec City, St John’s, Winnipeg, Seoul and Jinju in South Korea, before migrating to Grande Prairie, AB, where it’s cold most of the time but the wildlife comes right up to the door and asks to come in.
Her first novel, Stolen (2006), was nominated for a Giller Prize and was the Winner of two Saskatchewan Book Awards (First Book Award and Saskatoon Book Award). A Finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award, as well as being cited as a Globe & Mail Top 5 First Fiction choice, Stolen also garnered Lapointe a Canadian Authors Association-BookTV Emerging Writer award. Her second novel, Whitetail Shooting Gallery (2012), was a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year.
Lapointe completed her PhD in Contemporary Literature in 2010. She currently teaches at Grande Prairie Regional College.
