How important is truth? What is normal? These are the questions raised in The Gift Child, Elaine McCluskeyâ s fictional oeuvre â a funny, poignant, sure-shot novel, populated with a community of petty criminals, beloved broadcasters, undercover intelligence agents, and more.

The novel opens with the disappearance of a man in Pollock Passage, Nova Scotia, a man last seen driving away from a government wharf with a giant tuna head in the basket of his Schwinn delivery bicycle. The manâ s name is Graham Swim; heâ s good at playing the harmonica and making friends.

When Grahamâ s cousin Harriett decides to investigate his disappearance, she comes up against her own family history. A news photographer now jobless and adrift, Harriett has lived most of her life in the shadow of her larger-than-life father â a once-beloved TV news anchor and borderline narcissist.

When Harriett arrives in Pollock Passage, she meets a stranger who tells her he is researching the Shag Harbour UFO mystery. While this stranger helps Harriett reconnect with pieces of herself she thought long-dead, she also learns that what she knows about her father may not be true.

Vintage McCluskey, The Gift Child showcases McCluskeyâ s unique ability to capture the malleability of memory and the complex absurdity and nobility of humanity. Itâ s a novel thatâ s hard to put down; itâ s even harder to forget.