Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab

Longlisted for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize.

＂Mootoo has produced a stunning meditation on story. . . . [This novel] portrays the beautiful (yet often tense) bond between a parent and child, the complexities of immigration, the fluidity of gender, and provides a juxtaposition between two extreme climates, Toronto and Trinidad. It is a gorgeously written novel.＂ —National Post

＂A fascinating premise that gives voice to the queer-identified. . . . Mootoo’s brilliant evocations of [Trinidad’s] paradisiacal glow . . . are a real gift to the reader.＂ —Globe and Mail

Jonathan Lewis-Adey was nine when his parents separated, and his mother, Sid, vanished entirely from his life. It is not until he is a grown man that Jonathan finally reconnects with his beloved lost parent, only to find, to his shock and dismay, that the woman he knew as ＂Sid＂ in Toronto has become an elegant man named Sydney living in his native Trinidad.

At the novel’s opening, Jonathan is summoned urgently to Trinidad where Sydney, now aged and dying, seems at last to offer him the gift he longs for: a winding story that moves forward sideways as it reveals the truths of Sydney’s life. But when and where the story will end is up to Jonathan, and it is he who must decide what to do with Sydney’s haunting legacy of love, loss, and acceptance.

Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland and grew up in Trinidad. Her novels include Valmiki’s Daughter, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; He Drown She in the Sea, long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and Cereus Blooms at Night. Mootoo divides her time between Grenada and Canada.