Home in Alfalfa - Stories by Hugh Cook

“…intesnse and unforgettable characters…one of the finest collections of the past year.”
Alberto Manguel, The Globe & Mail

“The best stories…find a poise among the demands of poetry, narrative and meaning… It catches, as the best short fiction does, the poetry of the real.”
David Helwig, The Toronto Star

Welcome to a year in the life of Alfalfa, a small town in the heart of Southern Ontario farm country. Here you will meet… Hilbert TeBrake, who is convinced this is the year he will finally beat Earle Prior in the giant cauliflower championship at the Alfalfa Fair. VanderLeek, Lubbers and Klop, three frugal farmers who together buy a boar named Wild Oats, then devise an ingeious plan to breed their own sow – but only on Sundays. Robert Meyer, the town photographer and the best friend a bride ever had. Dorothy DeHeer, a pastor’s wife who dreams of a rendez-vous in the Cayman Islands with a secret lover…

Stories and characters will remind readers of the world of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.

Hugh Cook was born in the Hague and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was seven years old. He holds an M.A. from Simon Fraser University and an M.F.A from the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. He is Professor of English at Redeemer College and lives in Hamilton, Ontario. His collection of short stories, Cracked Wheat and Other Stories, and his novel The Homecoming Man, both published by Mosaic Press, received wide critical acclaim.