She can picture it already: Alex, laughing as he tells her how no one believes his mother invented Pep Talk Paul, the app that saved the world. And she’ll assure him that it’s true, but she won’t tell him it’s also the reason she gets to be his mother, because by then he won’t remember that there was a time when someone else was. Set on a Newfoundland ferry and written by the narrator Pauline from an imagined future perspective where she is wealthy and successful—and a good mother—No Wake Zone is the story of a young woman and an old man realizing a deep affinity for one another, and a timely exploration of the nature of guilt and hope, of responsibility and tenacity, and of connection with self, others, and technology. In the end it reminds us that we’re all flawed, but that we’re also all heroic.
J.P. Rodriguez grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, studying at various universities and taking more courses than he suspects anyone ever has en route to an eventual teaching degree. He began writing fiction in Tokyo while teaching English to students ranging in age from 3 to 88, and after two years teaching in London decided more university couldn’t hurt, so he returned to Canada and completed a master’s degree in social work. The author of many short stories and the novel The Space Between, he currently resides in Toronto with his partner and two young children.
