The Break

Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2018
Crime Book of the Month, Sunday Times, February 2018

‘A tough, close-up look at a side of female life that’s often hard to acknowledge: the violence girls and women sometimes display towards other girls and women … An accomplished writer who will go far.’ – Margaret Atwood

Stella, a young Métis mother, lives with her family by the Break, an isolated strip of land on the edge of their small Canadian town. Glancing out of her window one winter’s evening Stella spots someone in trouble; horrified, she calls the police. But when they arrive, no one is there, scuff marks in the compacted snow the only sign anything may have happened.

What follows is a heartbreaking and powerful tale of a community in crisis as the people connected to the victim, a young girl on the edge of a precipice, begin to lay bare their stories leading up to that fateful night. From Lou, a social worker grappling with the end of a relationship, to Cheryl, an artist mourning the premature death of her sister. And from Phoenix, a homeless teenager released from a youth detention centre with no one to turn to, to Officer Scott, a Métis policeman caught between two worlds.

Through the prism of one extended, intergenerational family, Vermette’s urgent story shines a light on the power, violence and love shared between women of all cultures, creeds and ages.