The Girl In Saskatoon

In 1961, Alexandra Wiwcharuk was found murdered on the banks of the Saskatchewan River. As Sharon Butala writes, all of Saskatoon “came to a stop,” stunned by the brutal death of an attractive young woman who was a graduate nurse and had been crowned a beauty queen in local pageants. The murder became a touchstone moment for Saskatoon. More than 40 years later, it still haunts the residents, especially those who, like Butala, were Alexandra’s friends.
    Compelled by her memories of Alex and her time, Butala returns to that still-unsolved murder. In The Girl in Saskatoon—a title taken from a song that Johnny Cash sang to Alex at a concert only months before her death—she faces the horror of those past events to create a portrait of friendship and remembrance, of a time when life appeared so much simpler. Written in Butala’s intimate, eloquent style, The Girl in Saskatoon is at once an in-depth investigation of a tragic death, a nostalgic coming-of-age  story and an exploration of the nature of good and evil.

Sharon Butala is an award-winning and bestselling author of fiction and non-fiction. Her classic book The Perfection of the Morning was a #1 bestseller and a finalist for the Governor Generals Award. Her short story collection Fever won the 1992 Authors Award for Paperback Fiction and was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers Prize. A recipient of the Marian Engel Award and an Officer of the Order of Canada, Sharon Butala lives near Eastend, Saskatchewan.

ISBN: 9781554680108
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: March 17, 2009

?A meditation so hauntingly intense that it will touch and connect all those who read it.? (The Globe and Mail)