Francie's Got a Gun

ONE OF CBCS BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS OF 2022

A suspenseful and poignant tale from an award-winning writer about a girl navigating chaotic family life in a close-knit small town.

On a June afternoon in a small city, a wild-eyed girl named Francie dashes down a neighbourhood street, clutching a gun. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s running from, and she doesn’t know what she’s heading towards. All she understands is the need to survive. To save herself, she has no choice but to run—and to save those she loves, she must hold tight to that gun.

Swirling around Francie is a chorus of friends, family, and neighbours, each person with a different view of her. As we hear from these voices—Francie’s steadfast best friend, Alice; Alice’s comically unaware mother, Sally, and struggling mathematician father, David; Francie’s distressed and distracted mother, Marietta, and troubled, unwell father, Luce—a fractured portrait emerges of the girl and the village surrounding her. And at last we arrive at a still point in the chaos: a tall tree where Francie takes shelter, and where the meaning of her flight—for herself, and for the people around her—becomes clear.

In Francie’s Got a Gun, award-winning writer Carrie Snyder assembles a chorus of unforgettable characters who are both well-intentioned and flawed. At their centre is Francie, a vulnerable, imaginative girl with surprising attachments to each of them. Here is a propulsive, polyphonic, heart-expanding novel—equal parts sorrow and humour, fear and love, anger and kindness—about social breakdown and the quest for connection in a close-knit community.