The Heavy Bear
Tim Bowling
June 2017
240 pages | ISBN 978-1-928088-32-5
What happens when a respectable middle-aged father, teacher and writer decides one day to abandon his ordinary routine and embark on an unexpected journey toward an unknowable fate, following the ghost of Buster Keaton and a vision of a bear?
In Tim Bowling’s extraordinary new novel, The Heavy Bear, we spend an intense late-summer day in downtown Edmonton with our narrator, an unassuming college instructor who just happens to be named Tim Bowling. Haunted by the “slender sadness” of the world and looking for a way to shake off the trivial frustrations of modern life, Bowling’s Tim Bowling finds himself pulled into an escapade involving an antique toy, a “liberated” capuchin monkey and an eager young student who our narrator likens to Pippi Longstocking. Advised by the bear-shaped spirit of American poet Delmore Schwartz and guided by the ghost of silent film star Buster Keaton, this Tim Bowling stumbles through his adventure until he stands free of his ghosts and finds himself willing to rejoin the bustling current of our clamorous age.
Reviews | Excerpt | About the Author
Reviews
The Heavy Bear (Richard Kelly Kendrick, Alberta Views, 01/12/2017)
"Every author has a verb. Munro dazzles, Morrison provokes, Atwood survives. Tim Bowling, quite simply, writes."
"The Heavy Bear by Tim Bowling" (Lindy, Lindy Reads and Reviews, 14/09/2017)
"There's enough humour and narrative action to keep the storyline compelling even as it meanders through thoughtful interludes.... The Heavy Bear is an inventive, introspective and thoroughly rewarding novel."
The Heavy Bear (Publishers Weekly, 01/07/2017)
"Bowling (The Tinsmith) takes readers on a zany Joycean journey through the streets of Edmonton."
The Heavy Bear (Tanya Rohrmoser, Quill & Quire, 01/07/2017)
"Bowling’s command of language is effortlessly beautiful; part of the brilliance of the novel is in the way it prompts you to consider your own engagement as a reader."
10 must-read Canadian books for summer 2017 (Sue Carter, Now Toronto, 21/06/2017)
"Beautifully written, this is a book for readers, and for those looking for reassurance that middle-age doesn’t mark the end of personal creativity."
Articles
Books on My List (Julie Salverson, Wolsak and Wynn blog, 19/11/2024)
Julie Salverson includes Tim's novel on her list of strongly written books.
Excerpt
Click here to read the first few chapters of The Heavy Bear.
About the Author
Apart from appearing as a main character in novels that he has written, Tim Bowling also works in many other genres of literature. His nineteen books have been shortlisted for major national prizes in fiction (the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, for his most recent novel, The Tinsmith, in 2012), nonfiction (the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize) and poetry (the Governor General’s Award and Canadian Authors Association Award), and in 2008 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded Bowling a fellowship recognizing his entire body of work. His writing has also been nominated twelve times for the Alberta Literary Awards and nine times for the City of Edmonton Book Prize.
Other Titles by This Author
In the Capital City of Autumn (2024)
The Marvels of Youth (2023)