Eat Your Heart Out
About the Book
With unsentimental prose and ironic dialogue, Katie Boland brings to life a variety of characters who all have one thing in common—a need for something more. A literary debut by a refreshing new voice in fiction, the stories in Eat Your Heart Out are about the haunted and heartbroken, about dreamers, losers and love-lost souls. From a sixteen-year-old autistic savant who’s sleeping with his best friend’s mother, to a tattooed beauty coming to terms with an alcoholic parent, to a newspaper man forever changed by a tender drifter, to a grief counsellor trying to reconcile her own tragic loss, the stories examine the fragility of human relationships and why people love the way they do.
Bold, poignant and affecting, Eat Your Heart Out is a clear-eyed exploration of youth, life, love, sex, and death.
Reviews
“Reminiscent of Hemingway’s sharp minimalism, paired with Kerouac’s verve, Eat Your Heart Out tackles being alive in the here and now, with sterling writing and stellar voices. Boland is a bold new old-soul in CanLit.” —Globe and Mail
“A stunning debut collection. Katie Boland captures love in all its terrifying permutations. These are characters we all have known or have been, rendered with unflinching honesty but also with compassion and wit.” —Nino Ricci
“With her sharp-shooter eye and intrepid heart, Katie Boland is the love child of Dorothy Parker and Jack Kerouac. In this, her debut collection, her stories and those who populate them live at the edges of what is civilized: they gamble love and truth, and in reading them, we cannot help but do the same. Eat Your Heart Out is a title as much as it is a dare.” —Claudia Dey
“In this radiantly written collection, Katie Boland tunnels into the beating, mysterious heart of human connections. Pummeled by life and haunted with hope, her characters are so vivid and alive, you’d swear they’re right behind you. Astonishing.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
“Katie Boland’s new book of short stories is a great example of the punch and pizzazz you’ll only find in a book of short fiction. Eat Your Heart Out is a vibrant collection: it’s snap crack and popping with life.” —49th Shelf