Description
Grocery-store clerk Beth has had a hell of a week. A hell of a life, actually, full of people squashing her soul. And after pushing back at life—stabbing a steak to her boss’s desk and lighting a magazine rack on fire, for instance—freshly unemployed Beth regroups at her mom’s suburban home. Just when Beth starts to think she’s to blame for systemic limits, the gift of a bird feeder sparks a relationship with a talking Crow who reconnects her with her true power.
This sly chamber piece from new voice Caleigh Crow turns post-capitalism ennui on its head with a righteous fury. It unearths the subtle (and not so subtle) ways we gaslight the marginalized, especially Indigenous women, people living with mental-health afflictions, and anyone struggling to make ends meet in low-income service jobs. There Is Violence captures the vivacity and humour of one truly remarkable woman not meant for this earth, and brings her to her own glorious transcendence.
Caleigh Crow is a queer Métis writer and performer from Mohkinstsis.
The Prose in English Award Nominee. The 2024 Indigenous Voices Awards.
2024 Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist, Drama