Astray - Hardcover

"Emma Donoghue is one of the great literary ventriloquists of our time. Her imagination is kaleidoscopic. She steps borders and boundaries with great ease and style. In her hands the centuries dissolve, and then they crystallize back again into powerful words on the page."--Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

"Donoghue applies her talents for characterization and depth of feeling over and over again as she documents restless wanderers and lost souls across four generations, each in a world as strange and real as the last."--Emily Temple, Flavorpill

"Donoghue establishes a distinct voice and person [and] the stories are vivid, curious, and honest..."--Publishers Weekly

"[The] tales...feel like discoveries, stories that were waiting to be told."--Stephan Lee, Entertainment Weekly

"Fans of... Room will recognize the same imaginative flexibility and ventriloquism in ASTRAY, only multiplied and lightly patinated.... A refreshing break from the trend of linked collections; each story is entirely discrete, and strong enough to be read in isolation."--Holloway McCandless, Shelf Awareness

"Haunting.... These seekers and their stories pull you in-and stir your heart."--People (4 stars)

"Splendid.... "[An] original and compelling collection."--Mameve Medwed, The Boston Globe

"From England, Canada and the United States, Donoghue has created a restless world of travelers, finders and seekers, as well as a book that is an interactive narrative hybrid, one that gets us lost in other lives, that probes our history, that reveals the artist behind the word and that ultimately shows us something fresh, unsettling and enduring about ourselves."--Caroline Leavitt, The San Francisco Chronicle

"ASTRAY is an exceptional uniting of history and imagination."--Jake Cline, The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"A beautifully rendered collection of hauntingly vivid short stories.... Redolent with historical details, Donoghue's tales are enthralling.... Each story is so complete that there's a sense of mourning as one comes to a close, but also a thrill as to what she will come up with next.... She could not have assembled a richer cast of characters. We sense Donoghue's compassion for all of them-even the least appealing ones like the ultra-judgmental Englishman who settles in Yarmouth or the Illinois counterfeiters who conspired to steal Abraham Lincoln's corpse. Gorgeously written and thoroughly engrossing, ASTRAY captures the uncertainty and complexity of settling into unknown turf. The voices of her characters reverberate in our heads, long after putting the book down."--Claudia Puig, USA Today (4 stars)

‘Emma Donoghue writes books that are unlike anything I have ever seen before, and Astray is no exception. There is such a deep and compassionate imagination at work in every story in this collection that Astray feels almost like an act of clairvoyance.’ Ann Patchett, Orange prize-winning author of Bel Canto