Local author, Bill Engleson, will formally launch the release of his second novel and third book, The Life of Gronsky, on Saturday, April 22 at Denman Island’s beloved independent bookstore and bistro, Abraxas Books.
The novel follows Gilbert Gronsky, a relatively new author, who decides in 2021 to spread his penmanship beyond the occasional flash fiction effort, and enters the three-day novel contest over the Labour Day weekend. As he writes his ‘novella,’ a mystery, his life alternates between emerging mini-chapters, small domestic interruptions, his passion for watching the US Open tennis tournament, his lover, his friend and at one point, a surprise visitor in his garage and the like.
The second two-thirds of the novel occur in the month of November as Gronsky lives his life day by day and writes a more complex thriller set in Canada in the post-war period, 1946-48. As he wiles away on his November writing excursion, he is intrigued/occupied by a plethora of actions in the larger world including extreme weather events, COP 26, Haiti missionary kidnappings, love, food, and COVID.
“And, of course, tennis,” says Engleson.
“The Life of Gronsky is a funny, engrossing, and compelling story about a character you’ll remember long after you’ve finished this book,” said Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. “Masterfully weaving stories within stories, Bill Engleson takes readers on a memorable journey.“
Engleson is a retired social worker, active pickleball player, novelist, poet, humourist, essayist and flash fiction writer. An engaged community volunteer, he lives on Denman Island.
Previous to The Life of Gronsky, Engleson published one noirish novel, Like a Child to Home, in 2013, and a 2016 collection of humorous literary essays entitled Confessions of an Inadvertently Gentrifying Soul.
For more information, check his twitter, @billmelaterplea, and his website/blog www.engleson.ca