In This Faulty Machine
Kathy Page is the author of eleven acclaimed works of fiction. Her most recent novel, Dear Evelyn, won the 2018 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Prize, and won the 2019 City of Victoria Book Prize.
Always a versatile writer, Kathy Page now faces the challenge of living with Parkinson’s disease. The ability to invent and develop fictional situations seems to have abandoned her (or she it), replaced by a desire to explore and convey the physical realities, philosophical perplexities and many ironies of living with a much-dreaded neuro-degenerative disease—something that is, she insists, “far more interesting than you might think.”
This is a memoir written with a novelist’s eye, ear and voice, and the same deep and compassionate sense of character that distinguishes Page’s previous work. Add in the author’s sense of humour and instinct for the absurd, and the end result is an unflinching yet highly enjoyable read. In This Faulty Machine is both an important contribution to the understanding of Parkinson’s disease and a heartfelt memoir of creativity and a life well-lived, even as the challenges mount. It is a story of vital interest to us all as we face our own fragility, and indeed, mortality.
Viking Penguin Canada Sept 9 2025
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