Pathologies
A Life in Essays

Winner, Creative Nonfiction Collective’s Readers’ Choice Award, 2010

Long-listed for Canada Also Reads

Nominated for the 2009 CNFC Readers’ Choice Award

Long-listed for the BC Award for Canadian Nonfiction

“In simple terms, pathology is the scientific study of the way things go wrong.”

From the publisher:

In these fifteen searingly honest personal essays, debut author Susan Olding takes us on an unforgettable journey into the complex heart of being human. Each essay dissects an aspect of Olding’s life experience—from her vexed relationship with her father to her tricky dealings with her female peers; from her work as a counsellor and teacher to her persistent desire, despite struggles with infertility, to have children of her own. In a suite of essays forming the emotional climax of the book, Olding bravely recounts the adoption of her daughter, Maia, from an orphanage in China, and tells us the story of Maia’s difficult adaptation to the unfamiliar state of being loved.

Written with as much lyricism, detail, and artfulness as the best short stories, the essays in Pathologies provide all the pleasures of fiction combined with the enrichment derived from the careful presentation of fact. Susan Olding is indisputably one of Canada’s finest new writers, one who has taken the challenging, much-underused form of the literary essay and made it her own.

Available at fine independent stores, including: Novel Idea, Kingston, Ontario; Ben McNally Books, Toronto; Pages, Calgary, Alberta; Owl’s Nest, Calgary, Alberta; The Miller’s Tale, Almonte, Ontario; 32 Books, West Vancouver, BC; McNally Robinson Booksellers, Winnipeg, Manitoba and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Munro’s Books, Victoria, BC.

You may also purchase the book online directly from Freehand Books, or from McNally Robinson Online, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, or Chapters-Indigo.

Download a Reading Guide to Pathologies. pathologiesreadingguide

You can also find Susan’s work in the following anthologies:

Between Interruptions
“Written by mothers for mothers, this book is full of essays that will have readers laughing out loud, crying in sympathy, and nodding their heads in recognition.” Quill and Quire
Body Breakdowns
“hilarious…hair-raising…” Shared Vision “uplifting…invariably enlightening.” BC Bookworld
The Lucky Ones
An Adoptive Families Best Book of 2008.
Double Lives
“…philosophical, pragmatic, nurturing, and intensely personal…this courageous and revealing book…belongs in every mother-writers’ library.” Quill & Quire