About the Author

Angie Abdou is a fiction writer and teacher with a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Calgary. She has published a short story collection called Anything Boys Can Do (2006) and a novel called The Bone Cage (2007). The Bone Cage is taught in university-level Sport Literature courses across the continent and was included on Canadian Literature's "All-Time Top Ten List of Best Canadian Sport Literature." Angie was raised in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and now lives in Fernie, British Columbia, with her husband and two children..Please visit abdou.ca or follow Angie on Twitter at @angie_abdou.

Reviews

[The] Canterbury Trail . . . is much more than a story about a ski town. Like all great novels, it is a 'story of life' that just happens to be set in snowy mountains, with all the characters traipsing around on skis. . . . It's a delightful, thought-provoking book and I recommend it highly. &#8212Jon Turk, Powder Canada-- (06/12/2011)

The Canterbury Trail often seems like an anthropological study of those who've devoted their lives to the mountains, and Abdou doesn't shy away from more unsavory aspects of ski culture. --Mark Medley, The National Post-- (04/15/2011)

The Canterbury Trail solidified Angie Abdou as one of my favorite writers. --Lavender Lines Book Review Blog-- (04/15/2011)

The Canterbury Trail was a Mountain and Wilderness Literature finalist in the 2011 Banff Mountain Book Competition.-- (03/11/2011)

[Angie Abdou] makes us care whether or not [her characters] find their magical chalice and make it back from their pilgrimage. --The Winnipeg Review-- (04/15/2011)

Abdou takes us ' . . . somewhere beyond words.' All we can do is sit back and admire. --Book Discovery Blog-- (04/15/2011)

An unlikely group is pushed together, Big Chillish-style, for a close encounter of the awkward kind. --January Magazine-- (04/15/2011)

Chaucer's friars, squires, merchants and summoners are substituted with ski bums, hippies, fish-out-of-water urbanites and rednecks from the fictional town of Coalton, B.C., who make a bizarre pilgrimage to a remote backwoods cabin [in The Canterbury Trail] --The Calgary Herald-- (04/15/2011)

Each period in Canadian Literature has its bright lights, pre-confederation Canada has Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Trail; Ondaatje, Atwood, Laurence, and Munro all came to prominence in the 60s; and if I were to make a list of the great 21st century Canadian novelists to date, Angie Abdou would definitely be on the list. --The Canadian Book Review Blog-- (04/15/2011)

In The Canterbury Trail Abdou walks a tightrope, balancing elements of comedy and tragedy with equal poise and shows herself an able inheritor of ribald Chaucerian tradition. --Reading for the Joy of It Blog-- (04/15/2011)

On every level I revelled in The Canterbury Trail, Angie Abdou's new novel which reworks Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century Canterbury Tales to follow a group of people on a pilgrimage to a backcountry hut near the Canadian Rockies town of Coalton. --Straight Outta Dublin Blog-- (04/15/2011)

Original and entertaining. --Quill & Quire-- (01/05/2011)

The book has a distinctly unpredictable ending, so it might be worth reading this one to figure it out. An enjoyable jaunt into the world of back-country and downhill skiing, especially if you're a novitiate. --The Inferno-- (06/16/2011)

The story is at once bleak and hopeful; the writing is clear, considered prose. Angie combines traditional writing skill with forward-thinking fun. A wonderful voice in Canadian literature. &#8212Robin Spano, Advent Book Blog-- (07/12/2011)

The story is very well told, with very rich and tight prose and description. --Coreena McBurnie, Books & Other Creative Adventures Blog-- (10/06/2011)

The very best thing about the book is the ending. I LOVED IT! --Lindy Pratch, Lindy Reads and Reviews blog-- (10/13/2011)

This amounts to a gnarly, original fictional journey. Abdou's second novel is not the first literary work to emulate Chaucer's classic, but it could be the most uninhibited and most fun. --ABC Bookworld-- (01/09/2011)

You don't need a grounding in Chaucer . . . to appreciate the cultural clashes, connections and revelations between the skiing pilgrims of The Canterbury Trail, or to relish the authentic suspense Abdou builds through a gradual but genuine investment in the wellbeing of the various characters. --Bookgaga Blog-- (04/15/2011)

Abdou's writing is concise and observant. Her attention to detail and awareness of the backcountry lifestyle is refreshing. But it's what's happening on a deeper level--the struggles of bridging a ski bum lifestyle with the necessities of a career, pragmatism and belonging--that are revealed like a ski carving through layers of bottomless snow. --Backcountry Skiing Canada