Holding Still For As Long As Possible

• Zoe Whittall
• Anansi Press, 2009
• Hardcover, 302 pages
• 9780887842344

What is it like to grow into adulthood with the "war on terror" as your defining political memory, with SARS and Hurricane Katrina as your backdrop? In this robust, elegantly plotted, and ultimately life-affirming novel, Zoe Whittall presents a dazzling portrait of a generation we've rarely seen in literature -- the twenty-five-year olds who grew up on anti-anxiety meds, text-messaging each other truncated emotional reactions, unsure of what's public and what's private.

Holding Still revolves around the interlocking lives of two young women and a man who live in the seedy but gentrifying Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale: Billy, a former teen idol from the Lilith Fair days; Josh, a shy and sardonic paramedic who travels the city patching up damaged bodies; and Amy, a filmmaker coping with her first broken heart. When a freak accident changes everything, each character must decide how to cope with the things they can't control.

With this extraordinary novel -- which, among other things, offers a detailed inside look at the work of paramedics, and entertaining celebrity gossip -- Zoe Whittall fulfills the promise of her acclaimed first novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts, and proves herself as one of our most talented younger writers.