The Butcher of Penetang

Betsy Trumpener’s raw fiction hits quickly, cuts deeply and lingers on in the imagination. Her urgent, unique voice pushes fiction north of what’s real. The Butcher of Penetang carves up rare slices of savory stories that are both tough and delicious. A child missing in a dangerous part of town; a draft dodger with bloody hands; a robber armed with a hairbrush; a refugee who rescues poetry from his prison cell; moose hunters chasing snow flakes. The people in these edgy stories cut cocaine into comfort food, push sex into the snow, and chase speeding ambulances in the dead of winter. Trumpener’s debut collection is aching, funny, powerful and sharp.