Leung - That Time That I Loved You

That Time That I Loved You

linked stories by Carrianne K.Y. Leung

TENSIONS THAT HAVE LURKED BENEATH THE SURFACE OF A SHINY NEW SUBDIVISION RISE UP WHEN TRAGEDY STRIKES AGAIN AND AGAIN IN A NEW BOOK FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE TORONTO BOOK AWARD-SHORTLISTED THE WONDROUS WOO.

WINNER OF THE 2018 DANUTA GLEED AWARD FOR THE BEST FIRST STORY COLLECTION

“As if channeled by Gladys Kravitz and Charlie’s Angels, Leung’s stories read like the juiciest verified gossip.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Written in the tradition of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri, Leung’s debut story collection marks the career of a writer to watch.” —starred KIRKUS review

“Crystalline prose, sharp storytelling, and pitch-perfect narration enhance Leung’s accessible and affecting depiction of how cruelty undermines and kindness fortifies people’s sense of community.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Leung, author of Toronto Book Award-finalist The Wondrous Woo (2014), walks readers through the matching split-levels of a Toronto suburb in her striking U.S. debut…. Readers peer through chain-link fences and discretely pulled curtains along with Leung’s vivid, quotable characters-and are reminded that life doesn’t happen between soap-opera episodes, cigarettes smoked at the kitchen sink, and trips to the mall, but during them.”— starred BOOKLIST review

“In That Time I Loved You Carianne Leung introduces us to a multitude of intertwined, felt and feeling lives in a Scarborough suburb. Her short stories are crafted like houses, separated by chain link fence. We dedicate ourselves to knowing each character, their hidden, fully inhabited interior; only to glimpse them again later in vivid, green glimpses, painfully undone. Probing love, loneliness, social injustice and the wish to be revealed, her characters stammer and blurt, say the wholly unexpected, their lives tender and brave on the tips of their tongues.” —CITY OF TORONTO JURY STATEMENT ABOUT THAT TIME I LOVED YOU

“This compact gem of a collection of linked short stories…dazzles with its subtly…befriends its reader in the dead of night…[and] leaves a lasting impression and a new way of understanding people and the world.” —MARISSA STAPLEY in THE GLOBE AND MAIL

“1979: This was the year the parents in my neighbourhood began killing themselves.” From this opening line, That Time I Loved You keeps readers hooked until the very end. Reminiscent of Mona Awad’s 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, this collection of linked stories reveals children trying to make sense of a new environment that their parents cannot explain to them.

The adults are lost when they discover that their idyllic new suburban landscape is home to dark secrets, and is not the haven that they thought it was.

Carrianne Leung, through the perspectives of multiple characters from different ethnic and social backgrounds, explores what happens behind closed doors in a community of strangers struggling to relate to each other. Always returning to the voice of young June, the adolescent daughter of Chinese-immigrant parents, That Time I Loved You is seen through the eyes of a sensitive and watchful child who is figuring out a world she doesn’t yet understand. With dark humour June observes death and endures betrayal and heartbreak, all to the sound track of 1970s pop music, as she prepares to venture out in to the wider world.

PRAISE FOR THAT TIME I LOVED YOU

“Every portrait is eloquent and lingers in your mind.” —CANADIAN LIVING

“That Time I Loved You made me laugh, cry, feel, and think. A timely look at the 1970s, it shakes up our ideas about the suburbs. While the houses may look the same, the lives of Carrianne Leung's characters are anything but—her sharp writing spans racial, cultural, and class lines to find the heart and beauty of the individual lives within. I loved this book.” —CLAIRE CAMERON, author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal

“That Time I Loved You is amazing, heart-breaking, probing, tender; apocalyptic, in the truest sense. With an activist’s compassion and a poet’s eye, Leung challenges everything we knew (or thought we knew) about the suburbs. Behind the facade of tidy houses, manicured lawns, and well-behaved dogs live characters imprisoned by sadness and despair, battling racism and social injustice, yet relentless in their pursuit of love. This is the best coming-of-age story I’ve read in a long time.”— YASUKO THANH, author of The Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains

“In That Time I Loved You, Carrianne Leung reveals a suburb on the cusp of change, families whose names are no longer Smith and Watson, but rather Chow and Da Silva. Leung illuminates with clear unassuming prose and much compassion, a neighbourhood that is complex, disturbing, funny, sad and very human.” —JUDY FONG BATES, author of Midnight at the Dragon Café and The Year of Finding Memory

“With compassion and masterful storytelling, Leung walks us past neat front yards and deep into kitchens, bedrooms and basements, to show us that life in the suburbs isn’t as tidy as it might seem. That Time I Loved You is about children losing innocence and adults burying pain, and yet is also a hopeful portrayal of friendship, kinship and community.” —FARZANA DOCTOR, author of All Inclusive

Read an excerpt
See all author's titles

That Time That I Loved You

The Bukowski Agency Ltd.