What Can You Do
Stories
In these twelve stories that unfold over a few hours or a weekend or five decades, adults deceive themselves about their motives—greed, desire for control, jealousy, fear, ambition. With unflinching realism, reminiscent of William Trevor, Cynthia Flood exposes the failings of the human heart and with a marvellous unsentimental brutality leaves many a character unredeemed.
Cynthia Flood's most recent book, Red Girl Rat Boy (Biblioasis 2013) was shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes' fiction award and long-listed for the Frank O'Connor award, besides appearing on "best of year" lists for Quill & Quire and January Magazine. Earlier collections are The English Stories (Biblioasis 2009), My Father Took a Cake to France, and The Animals in their Elements. Her work has been selected six times for Best Canadian Stories, and appears often in both print and on-line literary magazines. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
