Russell Wangersky – författare

Winner of the 2009 British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, short-listed for the 2008 Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize Thousands of boys dream of becoming firefighters. Some get the chance, and for some of those, the dream becomes a nightmare.Burning Down the House is the story of Wangersky's eight-year career as a volunteer firefighter, an experience that wound up reaching into every facet of his life and changed the way he saw the world forever. Written in vibrant, luminous prose, the book traces his years from rookie to veteran firefighter and the toll it took on his personal life. Offering a rare glimpse into physical dangers and psychological costs of trying to save strangers' lives, Wangersky paints a harrowing and sometimes heartbreakingly vivid portrait of the fires, medical calls, and automobile accidents that are the standard fare of the profession. Visceral and affecting, Burning Down the House is an insightful insider's account of the perilous world of firefighting and an unforgettable memoir of how, in finding his passion, Wangersky lost himself.

From critically acclaimed author Russell Wangersky, comes a dark, psychological thriller about a man named Walt, a grocery store cleaner who collects the shopping lists people leave in the store and discard without thought. In his fifties, abandoned, he says, by his now-missing wife Mary, Walt is pursued by police detectives unsatisfied with the answers he’s given about her disappearance.Almost invisible to the people who pass him every day, the grocery lists he collects, written on everything from cancelled cheques to mortgage statements to office stationary, give him a personal hold over those who both ignore him and unwittingly disclose facets of their lives to him.When a new cold case squad is formed in St. John’s to look into Mary’s disappearance, the detectives begin to realize that Walt may be involved in more than just his wife’s disappearance.Set in modern-day Newfoundland, after reading Walt, you’ll be sure to never let your shopping list fall to the floor ever again.

“Like Cheever or Munro, Russell Wangersky delves stealthily into disquieting corners of the domestic sphere.”—Globe and MailA man mourning his only friend contends with his guilt over an unspoken transgression. A member of a concrete crew compares his own friendships with his ex-girlfriend’s. An elderly woman in a care home struggles to recover speech after a stroke—and to explain her unsettled feelings about another resident. A young renter contemplates the lives of her homeowner neighbours. In stories reminiscent of John Cheever or Alice Munro, Russell Wangersky considers the ostensibly everyday to expose the sudden depths of feeling that undergird the most ordinary lives.

Hi, ich bin Walt. Ich sammle weggeworfene Einkaufslisten. Das klingt vielleicht ein bisschen schräg, aber Sie ahnen ja nicht, was man auf diese Weise alles über jemanden erfährt! Das ist fast, als wäre ich selbst Teil der Familie. Ich gebe zu, ich bin einsam, seit meine Frau Mary mich vor ein paar Jahren verlassen hat. Kaum jemand gönnt mir einen zweiten Blick – als wäre ich unsichtbar. Besonders gern sammle ich die Zettel von Alisha. Sie ist noch so jung, jemand sollte auf sie Acht geben, finde ich. Ich mache das gern, auch wenn sie nicht mal ahnt, dass ich existiere …