Luck

Joan Barfoot is the author of ten novels, including, Critical Injuries, which was longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2001 Trillium Book Award. Her other works include Abra, which won the Books in Canada First Novel Award; Dancing in the Dark, which was adapted into an award-winning feature film; Duet for Three; Family News; Plain Jane; Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch; Some Things About Flying and Getting Over Edgar. In 1992, she received the Marian Engel Award in recognition of her body of work.Luck, Barfoot’s most recent novel, was shortlisted for the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize. In an interview with the Calgary Herald, she discusses some of the issues she set out to explore in the novel: “Part of maturing as a writer is looking around the world …I am increasingly alarmed by so much, in despair about fundamentalism of every description, because it makes people so stupid and violent. In this novel I wanted to explore the concept of fundamentalism because I understand the desire to have rules, to live by them, and to let everybody else go to hell. Narrowness is comforting, especially because once you know too much, you cannot unknow it.”On the subject of luck itself, Barfoot says in an interview with Publishers Weekly: “I feel very lucky. I get to do pretty much exactly what I want, pretty much at any minute of the day. We 1% of the planet lead very lucky lives. And 99% of the world's population is enduring huge suffering. And I can't see beyond luck why that is.”Raised on a farm outside of Owen Sound, and a former newspaper journalist, Joan Barfoot lives in London, Ontario.