Goose Lane Editions is excited to announce the acquisition of award-winning author Bill Gaston’s new book, Spying on America from Heaven. Gaston’s writing has been shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award (twice), and has won a National Magazine Award, the Timothy Findley Award, and a CBC Literary Prize, among many others.

Spying on America from Heaven is a work of narrative non-fiction that details Gaston’s 11-day road trip into red-state America with his two adult sons in search of their abolitionist ancestors’ gravesite. Funny, offbeat, and a keen observer of human behaviour, Gaston scrutinizes the changing cultural tides in America from an outsider’s perspective with irreverent and incisive wit.

“Gaston’s story is part road trip, part family saga,” says Goose Lane’s Non-Fiction Acquisitions Editor, Simon Thibault. “As a writer who has honed his observational skills to inform his writing, Gaston is just as sharp in his insights towards himself and his family, tempering them with the same grace and humour that he accords others.”

This is Gaston’s third book of non-fiction, following Midnight Hockey, which detailed Canada’s fastest-growing athletic phenomenon: beer-league and old-timers’ hockey; and Just Let Me Look at You, a tender memoir about his relationship to his father that was nominated for the Charles Taylor Prize. Spying on America from Heaven is scheduled for publication in Spring 2026.

Author Photo: JenSteelePhotography