The Antagonist

Lynn Coady

• Publisher: House of Anansi Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780887842962
• eBook ISBN: 9781770890428
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Winner of the 2012 Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and shortlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

A finalist for the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, and named one of the best books of the year by Amazon, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star, The Antagonist tells the story of Gordon Rankin ("Rank"), a former hockey enforcer driven to seek revenge on a old friend who has published a novel revealing Rank's deepest secret.

The hulking Gordon Rankin has spent his life cast as an enforcer, a goon — by his classmates, his coaches, and especially his own father, Gordon Senior, an unfortunate victim of small man syndrome. Rank duly accepts his role and spends the majority of his high school and university years implementing the violent commands of others. Until one day tragedy strikes, with only Rank to blame. With nobody to turn to, he disappears.

But almost twenty years later Rank discovers that an old, trusted friend — the only person to whom he has ever confessed his sins — has published a novel mirroring Rank's life. The betrayal cuts to the deepest core of him, and forces Rank to confront the tragic true story from which he's spent his whole life running. A diatribe, a prayer, an ode to what it means to be a man, Rank's painful, suspenseful, and often hilarious journey grabs us by the throat and the heart and never lets us go. This is Rank's turn to finally set the record straight.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Openers
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Also by Lynn Coady
• About The Publisher