A powerful tale of the burdens and blessings of history, the divided self, and the quest to be whole, Girl Unwrapped is a coming-of-age story set in 1960s Montreal. Toni Goldblatt's awakening to taboo desire conflicts with the expectations of her Holocaust-scarred parents and with the conservative mores of her times. Yearning to re-invent herself, she flees to Israel in the wake of the 1967 war, but the Zionist dream doesn't save save her. Instead, she finds the realities of life in the Middle East more complex than she imagined, and that her quest for normalcy has been thwarted. Only on her return to Montreal, when she discovers kindred spirits in the underground lesbian bar scene, does Toni begin to accept herself and find her own path.

Achingly honest, Gabriella Goliger's Girl Unwrapped is a novel about forbidden love, isolation, and the search for personal truth despite the stranglehold of family history.

Gabriella Goliger wins Ottawa Book Award (Oct 2011)

Gabriella Goliger has won the Ottawa Book Award for Fiction for her novel Girl Unwrapped.

Of her novel, the jury said: finely detailed and richly textured novel, Girl Unwrapped probes the coming of age of Toni Goldblatt in post-War Montreal, from the 1950s through to the 1970s. An only child and an outsider, Toni comes to terms with her lesbianism, then struggles to tell her mother and find a peer group to which she belongs. Girl Unwrapped is a poignant, compassionate, and frequently humourous, novel that captures the contradictions and the perseverance of the human heart.

Price: $22.95 CAD; $19.95 USD
Published by: Arsenal Pulp Press

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