Stella Atlantis

With the dead you can go anywhere.

When novelist Johnny Coma's daughter comes back from the dead as a talking octopus, will he be finally be able to write her story? Will his estranged wife, renowned war photographer Vivienne Pink, even believe him? In Stella Atlantis, the stunning follow-up to her visionary desert novel Death Valley, Susan Perly returns to the lives of these troubled artists, haunted by the death of their young daughter, Stella, killed on the sidewalk outside their home, as they search for healing in separate cities and with new lovers. 

Moving in and out of Toronto, Amsterdam and Barcelona, across the Mediterranean to Ibiza and out to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, Perly's prose enacts grieving itself in the twinned stories of Johnny and Vivienne. Playfully dark and filled with beautiful flights of imagery, this is a story of fathers and daughters, of love lost and love reborn, of the redemptive power of art, the transformative power of the sea and how we can dare to reach for radiance and redemption. (From Wolsak & Wynn)

Susan Perly is a journalist and writer who has worked as a war correspondent and radio producer for CBC. Her novels include Love Street and Death Valley. She lives in Toronto.

• Susan Perly on the inspirational power of the desert
• 60 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in fall 2020

Interviews with Susan Perly

The Next Chapter6:32Susan Perly on "Death Valley"

The novelist and former journalist was interviewed at the Writers at Woody Point Festival about her novel, set in Nevada and featuring a war photographer who is on an assignment to photograph soldiers about to deploy for combat. 6:32

Other books by Susan Perly