Ali Bryan is a creative nonfiction writer and the author of six novels including, Roost, The Figgs, The Hill, Coq, The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships and Takedown. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, won the Georges Bugnet Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for both the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, and the Forest of Reading White Pine Award, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, longlisted for both the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing prize, and has been optioned for TV by Sony Pictures. Whatever – an anthology of short fiction by Gen X authors in which she is co-editing, is forthcoming from Dundurn in 2028. Born in Halifax, she now lives in Calgary.
A year after forest fires ravaged the town of Crow Valley and claimed the life of Dale Jepson—karaoke legend, local prison guard, and all-around good guy—the community hosts a high-stakes karaoke competition. But when a convicted murderer escapes from nearby Crow Valley Correctional, residents discover there’s more on the line than local, perhaps even national, karaoke fame.
In this darkly comedic, fast-paced ride through an unforgettable small town, five residents with intimate connections to Dale and drastically different goals for the night will collide into, conspire with, and aid one another as they scramble to make it successfully through the evening under the scrutinizing watch of neighbors.
To the soundtrack of classics belted out with abandon, voices will crack, cars will be stolen, marriages will falter, and kids will slip away in search of trouble. And maybe, just maybe, lives will be transformed for the better.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
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