Vital Signs
  • Published: 5 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9781446492826
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176

Vital Signs

Formats & editions
EBook
5 Jan 2012
Paperback
2 Jan 2013
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A moving and fiercely honest novel that explores marriage through the lens of a crisis of mortality.

‘I think I have found the way to talk to her in the present. The past takes too much language.’

So much is taken for granted in a long marriage, so much is relied upon, resented, and never spoken of. When Anna begins to mangle her sentences as a result of a brain aneurysm that could kill her at any moment, her husband Mike uses his talent as a graphic artist to draw his way closer to his wife. Trying to communicate with her, and himself too, through signs and symbols, he wants to show his wife that she has been his entire universe. But Mike is deeply flawed, hovering on the knife-edge of a confession, he selfishly looks to the woman he loves for absolution. Not knowing how much time they have left together and incoherent with guilt, will he finally confess all the ways in which he rebelled against her power over him, the way he betrayed her?
  • Published: 5 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9781446492826
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176
Categories:

About the author

Tessa McWatt

Tessa McWatt is the author of seven novels, two books for young people, and one nonfiction book. Her work has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Toronto Book Awards, and won the OCM Bocas Prize. She is a winner of the Eccles British Library Award 2018. McWatt is Professor of Creative Writing at UEA.

portrait photo of Tessa McWatt

Praise for Vital Signs

Depicts the power struggles and compromises of a long marriage with bracing honesty.

Financial Times

Packed with fascinating insight ... It's a gripping read

Cynthia MacDonald, Globe & Mail

A gripping story focusing on a complex marriage as it reaches crisis point.

Easy Living

A mesmerizing read. . . . [A] beautiful book. . . . A story of such enigma and economy . . . She depicts the undulating landscape of an enduring marriage with poignancy and power . . . Vital Signs is a work of literature, criticism and philosophy all at once: A formidable intellectual hat trick. At the same time McWatt tells a sincere and simple tale, that like children, we wish would never end.

Donna Bailey Nurse, National Post

A wonderful, thoughtful tale about love, language and living.

Bella

Part love story, part forensic examination of the psyche, Tessa McWatt digs deep into what makes us human in this disturbing portrait of family life.

Camilla Gibb