Fake it so Real takes on the fallout from a punk-rock lifestyle—the future of “no future”—and its effect on the subsequent generations of one family. In June of 1983, Gwen, a gnarly Nancy Spungen look-alike, meets Damian, the enigmatic leader of a punk band. Seven years and two unplanned pregnancies later, Damian abandons Gwen, leaving her to raise their two daughters, Sara and Meg, on her own.

The voices of Gwen, Sara and Meg weave a raw and honest tapestry of family life told from the underbelly, focused on the grey area between right and wrong, the idea that we are all equally culpable and justified in our actions, and the pain and ecstasy that accompany a life lived authentically.

Susan Sanford Blades lives in Victoria, BC, where she completed an MFA in fiction at the University of Victoria. Her short stories have been published in literary magazines across Canada and in the US and Ireland, including Minola Review, EVENT, The Moth, The Puritan, Numéro Cinq, The New Quarterly, Grain and Prairie Fire and anthologized in Coming Attractions 16.

• ReLit Award for Novel 2021, Winner

“Tender and lacerating. A jolt and a thump. Reading this book is a downright bodily experience. ”

“This is it. Nobody rocks a sentence like Susan Sanford Blades. Precise and furious at the same time, her writing thrums with the pure energies of sex and music, deep longing and deeper love. This family, these girls and these women, their lives are not like the ones you read about in Alice Munro, but this art is the same: vital, honest and unafraid. ”

“Dorothy’s Rainbow could have arguably been the best punk band, or any band, to ever come out of Victoria, British Columbia. ..but as the garden city was known for its passive-aggressive nature and no one ever really argued about anything, ‘the Rainbow’ seemed doomed to obscurity. Until now. ..”

“Blades’ debut is a gritty, breathtaking portrait of parenthood and the ghosts in every family. ”