The fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O’Neill’s work. In her bestselling novels, Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, she transforms the shabbiest streets of Montreal with her beautiful, freewheeling metaphors. She describes the smallest of things―a stray cat or a secondhand coat―with an intensity that makes them otherworldly. In Daydreams of Angels, O’Neill’s first collection of short stories, she gives free rein to her imaginative gifts. In “Swan Lake for Beginners,” generations of Nureyev clones live out their lives in a grand Soviet experiment. In “The Holy Dove Parade,” a teenage cult follower writes a letter to explain the motivation behind her crime. And in another tale, a grandmother reveals where babies come the beach, where young mothers-to-be hunt for infants in the surf. Each of these beguiling stories twists the beloved narratives of childhood―fairy tales, fables, Bible parables―to uncover the deepest truths of family life.
Author
Heather O'Neill was born in Montreal and attended McGill University. She published her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel won the Canada Reads competition (2007) and was awarded the Hugh Maclennan Award (2007). It was nominated for eight other awards included the Orange Prize, the Governor General's Award and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize. It was an international bestseller. Her books The Girl Who Was Saturday Night (2014) and Daydreams of Angels (2015) were both shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Her third novel The Lonely Hearts Hotel will be published in February 2017. Her credits also include a screenplay, a book of poetry, and contributions to The New York Times Magazine, This American Life, The Globe and Mail, Elle Magazine, The Walrus and Rookie Magazine.
