Running the Whale's Back

"A great read from cover to cover." — Quill & Quire

"T;rancendence seems to be the word that applies to this collection. ... Running the Whale's Back, through its themes of death and love that lock arms with belief and doubt, shows that age-old ideas are the best ones humans ever had, do have, will have, forever and ever. The ideas seem so good and lasting because they are articulated through the transcendent aesthetics of language, of story." — Winnipeg Review

"Serves to highlight this perpetual return to contemporary issues of faith: whether that faith be religious, economic, sexual or familial. ... These are stories that should be contemplated slowly and treated as individual meditations." — Atlantic Books Today

"While their origins are grounded and specific, the spiritual musings themselves are diffuse. ... the book's success — and it is a great read from cover to cover — comes down to the high quality of the stories themselves." — Quill & Quire

Andrew Atkinson is a part-time faculty member in the Department of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University who has published on Wayne Johnston, Flannery O'Connor, and Linden MacIntyre.

Carol Bruneau is the award-winning author of nine books. Her reviews, essays, and articles have appeared across Canada, and she has previously taught courses on writing for the arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She lives in Halifax, NS.

Alistair MacLeod was born in Saskatchewan but was raised in Cape Breton. He has published three short story collections: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, As Birds Bring Forth the Sun, and Island: The Collected Stories. His novel, No Great Mischief, won many honours including the Trillium Award for Fiction, the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.