Things I Will Tell You When I am Dead

Kathleen Whelan writes with one of the most unique voices in Canadian literature Ive ever heard. These stories are surreal and yet they dont fit cleanly into the surrealist genre. These stories are also real without being realist and at the same time absurd in the tradition of Kafka and Beckett. They are absurdly real. Perhaps the best description of Whelans style is absurd-realism but the truth is Things I Will Tell You When Im Dead is so original it defies all genre categories; it surprises and unsettles like a strange yet somehow beautifully crafted dream.Jacob Scheier Governor General Award winning author ofMore to Keep us Warm (ECW Press 2007)Kathleen Whelans distinctive voice shines through in Things I Will Tell You When I am Dead her first book of stories. Readers of Whelans work have been waiting for her debut collection and the waiting is finally over. The appealing directness of Whelans prose her startling images and irreverence--Whelans stories both wrench the heart and clench the gut in often hilarious stories that are relayed in a wildly entertaining and startling moving style that is uniquely Kathleen Whelans.J. Jill Robinsonauthor of the novel More in Angerand four collections of short stories.Kathleen Whelan lives in her own strangely slanted world - much like the rest of us. The difference is she knows how to open the door to her world even if only a crack and invite you to peek in. If youre brave enough you might actually enter. But dont enter if youre looking for some kind of redemption. Do it with an open mind and youll encounter a fear that borders on elation and that will tear you open and make you cry either with sorrow or with joy and often with both simultaneously.Kathleens sentences are ragged at the edges like strips of cloth flapping in the wind they twine together then shiver apart suggesting a chaos that never quite materializes but also never ceases to threaten the narrative.I read a lot of these stories years ago and was awestruck and mystified by Kathleens way. I didnt know exactly how she did it but I wanted more... and she was kind enough to share more with me. Reading these stories again now I am still mystified. Kathleen reminds me that it is still possible for me to be lost. Its okay to be lost. Lost is a valid and often wondrous place to be.Ken Sparlingis the author of six novels has been shortlisted for the Trillium Award.