Toronto, 1980s. Shirley’s inner world is saturated with storybook romance—the perfect soulmate, the transformative love, the life that gleams just out of reach. But as the years accumulate, so do loss, compromise, and the quieter textures of real intimacy. Gradually, the borrowed scripts of romance fall away, and Shirley must reckon with who she actually is, and what—and whom—she actually loves. The Mural is a deftly observed novel about the gap between romantic fantasy and lived experience, the slow education of the heart, and the unexpected depth that can take root in long-term relationships when we finally stop looking for something else.
Author of The Marzipan Fruit Basket, Eleanor Courtown, Stella’s Carpet, The Brickworks, and Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth, Lucy E.M. Black’s short stories have been published in Britain, Ireland, USA and Canada in a variety of literary journals and magazines. She lives in Port Perry, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island, First Nations.
