Spiderbones: The Launch Party September 19, 2008

On September 19, 2008 the latest edition of Spiderbones will be released.

Spiderbones is the story of Peter Fyre, a half-Aboriginal teenager with unbreakable bones made from spider silk. But his mind is unprotected. Now, he hears two voices in his head. One compels him to inspire a suicide. The other demands that he help everyone.

He soon falls in love with Meredith Banting, a woman so filled with life that she plays lacrosse one year after receiving a genetically modified heart in an experimental transplant operation. His feelings are punished the moment he’s aware of them, as his demons intensify their already brutal war to control him. Pushed to the brink of untreatable insanity, he must protect Meredith from himself, even when his yearning for her becomes as painful as his ceaseless, savage thoughts.

Spiderbones is Jeff D'Hondt's controversial first novel. The first edition was praised/vilified for a bleak, unflinching vision of the impacts of racism on mental health. The new edition retains the sharp-toothed brutality of the first, but features a new ending, a tighter narrative focusing on the romance between Peter and Meredith, and a clearer sense of the meaning behind the protagonist’s suffering.

Jeff D'Hondt has a Masters of Social Work degree from York University, and is the proud son of a Belgian Canadian father and a Delaware/Mohawk mother. He currently manages a mental health service for Aboriginal people, and is a sessional instructor in Social Work at Ryerson University. He has also spent over a decade serving the Aboriginal community throughout Ontario at settings including Kingston Penitentiary, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, Native Men's Residence, the John Howard Society, and hospitals.