Elaine McCluskey

Valery the Great is a crackling, electric collection of dark humour that follows the bizarre and beautiful lives of its protagonists. Sometimes sweet and gentle, sometimes sharply sarcastic, the unique narrative voices in this collection are always powerfully touching. In the title story, a young woman from New Brunswick uses figure skating as a way to fill the void left by her deceased father, and ends up as a Russian circus performer who dances on ice with two skating bears. We also meet an unlikely swim-team member, a crude and ineffective search and rescue volunteer, and Sparky, an ancient boxing trainer, who recalls the tumultuous life of his childhood friend, a dwarf named Maurice. Some of these stories have been published in subTerrain, The Dalhousie Review, the Fiddlehead, Other Voices, Room, Qwerty, Riddle Fence, Pottersfield Portfolio,Front & Centre and The Puritan.