The Break

Fiction is capable of helping us to comprehend difference and otherness, and The Break offers clear insight into people struggling to secure a place in the world.--Candace Fertile "Quill and Quire " "Katherena Vermette's debut novel, The Break, takes a tough, close-up look at an extended family in Winnipeg, tackling along the way a side of female life that's often hard to acknowledge: the violence of girls and women sometimes display towards other girls and women, and the power struggles among them. In The Break, the characters may be Metis, but the motivations and emotions are surely universal. This is an accomplished writer who will go far." - Margaret Atwood "Vermette is a staggering talent. Reading The Break is like a revelation; stunning, heartbreaking and glorious. From her exquisitely rendered characters to her fully realized world and the ratcheting tension, I couldn't put it down. Absolutely riveting." - Eden Robinson, author of Monkey Beach "The lives of the girls and women in The Break are not easy, but their voices -- complex, urgent, and unsparing -- lay bare what it means to survive, not only once, but multiple times, against the forces of private and national histories. Katherena Vermette is a tremendously gifted writer, a dazzling talent." - Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing "Katherena Vermette rendered the women of the North End gorgeous in her poetry: North End Love Songs. In The Break, she renders them sweet, beautiful battlers who love under the most horrific of circumstances. She points no fingers, just plots the story, person by person, memory by memory, until it is clear that we must give up the feeling of hopelessness that haunts the lives of these women. The Break is itself a beautiful love song of desire to live a full and rich life as cherished women -- even when we cannot have that. We can hope. Resilient as the star world from which they arise these women reconcile with their lives without giving in to the horrors they have faced. Vermette captures the reader from beginning to end. She creates unforgettable characters with honor, respect and a deft hand. In so doing she holds the reader's tender love in her capable hands and weaves us right into the story. The Break is unforgettable." - Lee Maracle, author of Celia's Song "Katherena Vermette's poignant novel, set in Winnipeg's North End, opens with a violent crime that becomes the backdrop for a story of great depth and compassion. This masterfully written narrative shifts among the intergenerational voices of the women of one extended Indigenous family. The Break is a powerful, persuasive novel about the strength and love that bind these women to each other and to the men in their lives. The traditions and wisdom of a community are honoured, as is the exquisite individual humanity of each character. Although this is a novel of social importance, it transcends politics, taking the reader on a journey to the heart of what it means for one person to care about another, survive trauma, and endure." - 2016 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Jury Lauren B. Davis, Trevor Ferguson, and Pasha Malla "Vermette offers us a dazzling portrayal of the patchwork quilt of pain and trauma that women inherit, of the 'big and small half-stories that make up a life.' These are the stories our mothers, sisters and friends have told us - the stories we absorb into our bloodstream until they might as well be our own . . . a stunning debut - a novel whose 10 voices, Greek chorus-like, span the full range of human possibility, from its lowest depths to its most brilliant triumphs, as they attempt to make sense of this tragic crime and of their own lives. The Break is an astonishing act of empathy, and its conclusion is heartbreaking. A thriller gives us easy answers - a victim and a perpetrator, good guys and bad guys. The Break gives us the actual mess of life."

KATHERENA VERMETTE is a Metis writer from Treaty One territory, the heart of the Metis nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, North End Love Songs (The Muses Company) won the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. Her National Film Board short documentary, this river, won the Coup de Coeur at the Montreal First Peoples Festival and a Canadian Screen Award. Her first novel, The Break (House of Anansi) was a national bestseller and won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. The Break was shortlisted for a Governor General's Literary Award, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and was a 2017 Canada Reads finalist.