Publisher Description
Inventive, outlandish, and tender fairy tales from bestselling author Heather O’Neill
The fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O’Neill’s work. In her bestselling novels The Lonely Hearts Hotel, Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, she transforms the shabbiest streets of Montreal with her beautiful, freewheeling metaphors. She describes the smallest of things—a stray cat or a secondhand coat—with an intensity that makes them otherworldly.
In Daydreams of Angels, O’Neill’s first collection of short stories, she gives free rein to her imaginative gifts. In “Swan Lake for Beginners,” generations of Nureyev clones live out their lives in a grand Soviet experiment. In “The Holy Dove Parade,” a teenage cult follower writes a letter to explain the motivation behind her crime. And in another tale, a grandmother reveals where babies come from: the beach, where young mothers-to-be hunt for infants in the surf. Each of these beguiling stories twists the beloved narratives of childhood—fairy tales, fables, Bible parables—to uncover the deepest truths of family life.
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“Gypsy violinists, bears on bicycles, artists washed up on a desert island—she could marry a walrus, who would be dependable, but would it be a loveless union?—populate O’Neill’s strange but irresistible fables and fairy tales for adults…O’Neill is a wondrous writer whose clean declarative sentences push the stories forward. She also has an astonishing gift for metaphor, which she mines as if she has struck the mother lode. The strength of this collection is not just the stories’ delectable absurdity but also their wisdom.”
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Toronto Star
About Heather O'Neill
Heather O’Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screenwriter, and essayist. Her prize-winning debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, was published in 2006 to international critical acclaim. Her novel, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, and the short story collection, Daydreams of Angels, were shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in consecutive years. The collection was also shortlisted for the Paragraphe Hugh McLennan Prize for Fiction.
About the Narrators
Erin Moon is a professional actor and an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator of over 150 novels. She lives and records in beautiful Vancouver, Canada.
Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.
James Langton, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.
Lauren Ezzo, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a commercial voice talent and Chicago-based actor and graduate of Hope College. She has acted in Peppermint Creek Theatre Company’s world premiere of Or You Could Kiss Me. Her narrations have placed her on several “Best of the Year” lists, including AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of the Year list. In 2018, she was part of a full cast of narrators nominated for the prestigious Audie Award for Best Original Work.
Lisa Flanagan is a classically trained soprano, comedian, voice-over artist, and Earphones Award–winning narrator.
Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
Paul Woodson has won SOVAS & Earphones awards, and has recorded close to 350 audiobooks in many different genres—including romance, fiction, history, biography, and mystery—in American and British accents—and received his BFA in acting at Boston University. In his theater days, he worked in many NYC shows, toured the USA and Europe, and starred in NYC as Vincent van Gogh in the sung-through, OOBR Award–winning musical Vincent. He enjoys backpacking the Appalachian Trail and visiting national parks in his spare time. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA.
Chelsea Stephens is an experienced voice actor with a talent for mystery, sci-fi, and YA novels. She won an AudioFile Earphones Award for her narration of Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. She has a longtime love and appreciation for the performing arts, with experience in onstage acting, singing, and voice-over. Her love for reading books and the pursuit of the story led her to narration. She enjoys unfolding characters and bringing listeners into new worlds.