Heather O’Neill

Heather O’Neill is a novelist, short-story writer, and essayist. Her novel The Lonely Hearts Hotel won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Canada Reads. Her previous work, which includes Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, and Daydreams of Angels, has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Lullabies for Little Criminals won Canada Reads and Daydreams of Angels won the Danuta Gleed Award. Perdre la tête, the translation of her most recent novel When We Lost Our Heads, was shortlisted for the Prix des libraries du Quebec. Born and raised in Montreal, O’Neill lives there with her daughter Arizona, with whom she hosts a monthly book column on CBC Montreal’s Homerun.

Instagram/Threads: @oneillreads

FESTIVAL BOOK

Wisdom in Nonsense: Invaluable Lessons from My Father

“I broke all the rules that my dad gave me. It was he who had given me, in part, the confidence to think of my life as being worthy to mix with those of the geniuses.” –Heather O’Neill

With generosity and wry humour, novelist Heather O’Neill recalls several key lessons she learned in childhood from her father: memories and stories about how crime does pay, why one should never keep a diary, and that it is good to beware of clowns, among other things. Her father and his eccentric friends – ex-bank robbers and homeless men – taught her that everything she did was important, a belief that she has carried through her life. O’Neill’s intimate recollections make Wisdom in Nonsense (CLC Lecture Series) the perfect companion to her widely praised debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals.

GET THE BOOK

Shelf Life Books | Calgary Public Library

When We Lost Our Heads

A lovely, uncanny take on the historical novel, told with O’Neill’s trademark wit and empathy for human foibles.” – Esi Edugyan

A spellbinding story about two young women whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the course of history.

Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At age 12, with her pile of blond curls and unparalleled sense of whimsy, she’s the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, the affluent strip of 19^th century Montreal where powerful families live. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly and brilliant, moves to the neighbourhood.

Marie and Sadie are immediately inseparable. United by their passion and intensity, they attract and repel each other in ways that set them both on fire. Marie, with her bubbly charm, sees all the pleasure of the world, whereas Sadie’s obsession with darkness is all-consuming. Soon, their childlike games take on the thrill of danger and then become deadly.

Forced to separate, the girls spend their teenage years engaging in acts of alternating innocence and depravity, until a singular event unites them once more, with devastating effects. After Marie inherits her father’s sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city’s gritty underworld, the working class begins to foment a revolution. Each woman will play an unexpected role in the events that upend their city – the only question is whether they will find each other once more.

When We Lost Our Heads is a page-turning novel that explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying strength of the human heart when it can’t let someone go.

GET THE BOOK

Shelf Life Books| Calgary Public Library | Audible

BE CURIOUSER

Review: When We Lost Our Heads – Quill & Quire
With her new novel, Heather O’Neill explores ‘femininity as an agent of terror’ – The Globe and Mail
No one knows how to portray Montreal as well as Heather O’Neill – Montreal Review of Books
In Heather O’Neill’s Mystery in the Métro, Valentine just might ‘show up at your stop’ – Montreal Gazette
Watch Wordfest Presents Heather O’Neill – Wordfest Imagine On Air