Norman Bray in the Performance of his Life
by Trevor Cole

• Cape Breton Regional Library, Sydney, Canada

Publisher of Nominated Edition
McClelland & Stewart Inc.
ISBN 077102262X

For years, Toronto stage actor Norman Bray has renounced all responsibility in the name of his "art." Now, middle-aged, teetering on the edge of financial ruin, and clinging to the faded light of his career, Norman must answer to the bank, to the adult children of his recently deceased common-law wife, and, most of all, to his own illusions about himself. Making matters worse, Amy, his stepdaughter-of-a-sort, discovers her late mother's journals and the unhappiness they contain. Meanwhile, Norman finds himself embroiled in the affairs of an attractive neighbour, with unexpected consequences. Highly original, skewering, hilarious, humane, Trevor Cole's brilliant debut looks at the precarious ties of love and family and the plight of a man who has reached the end of the line - and has only himself to blame.

Trevor Cole's first novel, Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life, was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Fiction and earned him the City of Hamilton Arts Award for Literature. Trevor Cole lives with his family in Hamilton, Ontario.