A Song for Wildcats by Caitlyn Galway
Books | Kathryn Mockler
“The horses watched as the cab passed, their black-smoke manes blowing over the bright swells of their eyes, their legs like brittle stems of clay. It was late October 1933, and the drought had swept its indiscriminate scythe across the once sun-honeyed fields.” —from “Wisps” in A Song for Wildcats by Caitlin Galway
I got to read an ARC of A Song for Wildcats.
The above quote is just one example of Caitlin Galway’s striking prose and fresh and original simile in these stories. Her characters are brilliant and larger than life but her steady hand with narrative and description is something to behold.
Here’s the blurb I wrote for the book:
A Song for Wildcats is a remarkable collection of five stories that move seamlessly through historical time periods and settings with a touch of the surreal.
Whether it’s ghosts in Northern Ireland during The Troubles or doppelgangers in 1980s Las Vegas, Caitlin Galway’s striking and elegant prose transports you into the rich inner worlds of her raw but fiery characters.
These urgent stories of desire, secrets, unconditional love, resistance, and survival are intimate, dreamlike, and profoundly affecting.
A Song for Wildcats by Caitlin Galway Dundurn Press, 2025
An arresting, vividly imaginative collection of stories capturing the complexity of intimacy and the depths of the unravelling mind.
Infatuation and violence grow between two girls in the enchanting wilderness of postwar Australia as they spin disturbing fantasies to escape their families. Two young men in the midst of the 1968 French student revolts navigate — and at times resist — the philosophical and emotional nature of love. An orphaned boy and his estranged aunt are thrown together on a quiet peninsula at the height of the Troubles in Ireland, where their deeply rooted fear attracts the attention of shape-shifting phantoms of war.
The five long-form stories in A Song for Wildcats are uncanny portraits of grief and resilience and are imbued with unique beauty, insight, and resonance from one of the country's most exciting authors.
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