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ABOUT AUTHOR Laura Vogt (Teufen, 1989) studied creative writing at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel and Cultural Studies at the University of Luzern. Her first novel So einfach war es zu gehen came out in 2016. She is also the author of numerous short stories and articles as well as lyrical and dramatic texts. She started writing her second novel Was uns betrifft (What Concerns Us) just two months after having her first child. In her work, Laura is particularly interested in exploring the complexity of relationships, maternity, as well as inquiring into the many forms that womanhood can take. She is currently working on her third novel. Laura lives in the canton of St. Gallen.

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DESCRIPTION. Rahel and Fenna are in their late twenties and early thirties. They are sisters. Their mother Vera brought them up by herself. Vera started a series of romantic relationships with other women, and now suffers from breast cancer. Rahel, a jazz singer, is pregnant and single but in love with writer Boris with whom she eventually moves. While she seems to embrace maternity and family life, she falls pregnant from Boris, and her body turns into a complete alienated part of herself. When the baby is born, she rejects maternity; at the same time, she cannot stop breastfeeding the baby. In the meanwhile, Fenna expects a child from Luc, a man who can turn from charming hippy to aggressor in a heartbeat, raping her on a woodland walk well into their relationship. We follow Fenna throughout her complex response, from rage, to acceptance, to feelings of responsibility and guilt. WHAT CONCERNS US is a blunt depiction of pregnancy, sex, maternity and relationships through the lives of two women.

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INDUSTRIAL ROOTS

INDUSTRIAL ROOTS

 
 
"An extraordinary, spikey and stylish collection of interlinked stories following working-class women and their lives in Ontario." Rachael Allen, Granta Books of the Year 2023
 
Industrial Roots preserves the oral tradition of storytelling through the lives of working-class women in Ontario.
 
Héloïse Press is thrilled to announce their first English title by Canadian author Lisa Pike. Rooted in the oral tradition of storytelling, Industrial Roots is an exceptional collection of interwoven domestic vignettes narrated by different female characters. The stories in this book concern mainly the daily experiences of blue-collar life amongst the members of a working class family. A woman that feels the urge to steal babies, an alcoholic husband, cousins in love with the same man, aging parents, absent fathers - all have a place in the stories these women tell. Lisa Pike uses a variety of registers, from slang to standard English, to shape the characters' stories. A playful use of the English language that dissolves the boundaries between the oral and written traditions. 
 
"Aficionados of greyscale Americana will love these interlinked vignettes - perfect polaroid snapshots of everyday life for generations of working-class women in Ontario." Stu Hennigan, author of Ghosts Signs 
 
"These bittersweet vignettes linked by intergenerational familial ties are little gems making up a caustic jewel of a novel."
                     Jonathan Wolfman, BAFTA-Winner screenwriter and producer.
 
"Lisa Pike is a wonderful writer. She brings these characters and their trials to life in a prose that carries their stories along in an engaging and accessible way." 
                 Dr Karina M. Szczurek, publisher and author of The Fifth Mrs Brink: A Memoir

Lisa Pike was born in Windsor, Ontario. She studied in France, worked in Italy, and completed her PhD at the University of Toronto. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in magazines and anthologies including CV2, The New Quarterly, Riddle Fence, Re: Generations: Canadian Women Poets in Conversation and VIA: Voices in Italian Americana. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, Policeman’s Alley; and a novel, My Grandmother’s Pill (Guernica Editions 2014).
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