The Girl Giant

A critically acclaimed bestseller in Canada, The Girl Giant is "emotionally exquisite and heartfelt" (The Globe and Mail)--a gorgeous and moving literary novel about a girl whose affliction gives her the mysterious power to see into the dark secrets of her family's past and present.

"Something good can come from even the most terrifying things. For eve y thing that is taken away, something else is given."

Ruth Brennan is a giant, "a rare, organic blunder pressed into a dollhouse world," as she calls herself. Growing up in a small town, where even an ordinary person can't simply fade into the background, there is no hiding the fact that Ruth is different: she can see it in the eyes of everyone around her, even her own parents. James and Elspeth Brennan are emotionally at sea, struggling with the devastation wrought on their lives by World War II and with their unspoken terror that the daughter they love may, like so much else, one day be taken away from them. But fate works in strange ways, and Ruth finds that for all the things that go unsaid around her, she is nonetheless able to see deeply into the secret hearts of others--their past traumas, their present fears, and the people they might become, if only they have courage enough.

Kristen den Hartog’s previous novels are Water Wings, The Perpetual Ending, which was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award, and Origin of Haloes. The Occupied Garden: A Family Memoir of War-torn Holland was written with her sister, Tracy Kasaboski, and was a Globe Notable Book of 2008. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter.