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 (she/her) lived in rural Saskatchewan, Quebec City, St John’s, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and South Korea before settling in northern Alberta. She now lives in Treaty 8 territory, on the traditional lands of the Beaver people, and teaches English and creative writing at Northwestern Polytechnic.
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. She is the author of two other acclaimed novels (Whitetail Shooting Gallery — finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year — and . . . And This is the Cure), and a collection of short stories, You Are Not Needed Now. swim: into the north’s blue eye is her debut poetry collection.
