Marina Endicott

Event Info: 'Wonderful Words Marquee' Stage at 1:00 - 2:00

Marina Endicott was born in Golden, BC, and grew up with three sisters and a brother, mostly in Nova Scotia and Toronto. She worked as an actor and director before going to England, where she began to write fiction. After London she went west to Saskatoon, where she was dramaturge at the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre for many years before going farther west to Mayerthorpe, Alberta; she now lives in Edmonton. Her first novel, Open Arms, was short-listed for the Amazon/Books In Canada First Novel award in 2002. Her second, Good to a Fault, was a finalist for the 2008 Giller Prize and won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, Canada/Caribbean region. The Little Shadows, her latest book, long listed for the 2011 Giller Prize, was a finalist for this year’s Governor General’s Award and will be published in the UK and Australia in spring 2012. She is at work on a new novel, Hughtopia.

Books

The Little Shadows

The Little Shadows follows three sisters into the backstage world of Polite Vaudeville before and during the First World War. Overseen by their fond but barely coping Mama, the sisters (Aurora, Clover and joyous, headstrong Bella) set out to make their living as a singing act after the untimely death of their father. With little in their favour save youth and hope, the sisters navigate their way to adulthood among a cast of extraordinary charmers, charlatans, ruffians and impresarios—and once in a rare while, a true star with transcendent gifts. From the brightly lit stage into the little shadows that lurk behind the curtain, the art of vaudeville—in all its variety, madness, melodrama, hilarity and sorrow—echoes the art of life itself.