Leila Marshy’s 2018 debut novel, The Philistine, follows a Palestinian Canadian woman’s journey to Egypt in the hope of finding her father. The Montreal author’s latest collection of short stories finds characters who are similarly searching — for purpose, connection, or a better understanding of their paths and choices. With My Thievery of the People, Marshy establishes herself as a masterful writer of intricate, intergenerational plots.
The book opens with “Blink Twice,” a two-page scene that touches on the way trauma informs even the smallest interactions. Two nervous strangers meet at an undefined gathering while loading their paper plates with “tasteless” tomatoes and “terrible cheese.” One tells the other to “blink twice,” riffing on “Blink twice if you need to be rescued,” but the joke is lost on the “unknowable” woman with an “unrelenting” gaze. The pair get stuck in a staring contest; the narrator laughs uncontrollably while the woman, who...
Shazia Hafiz Ramji is the author of the poetry collection Port of Being. She divides her time between Toronto and London, where she’s writing a novel.
Advertisement
Advertisement