“‘Hindsight. The only way to see clearly.’ This proverb illuminates the genesis of the life lessons that poet Andrea Thompson unfolds in her page-turner — and new-leaf-turning –debut novel. Over Our Heads is the poignant yet sprightly story of a family troubled by abandonment, accident, addiction, adoption, and death. Centreing on the fraught relationship between Rachel — a cool-and-calculating actuary — and her half-sister, Emma, a poet songstress gifted with ESP, the novel moves between the “now” of funeral arrangements and the girlhood “then” of Etch-A-Sketch and Easy-Bake Oven, The Wonder Woman and Harry Belafonte. Thompson orchestrates a wondrous collage of Ziggy Stardust and the Dalai Lama, urban parks and Aboriginal medicines, home renos and black holes, all to reveal that divisions of gender, class, race, and ethnicity are, truly, only skin-deep. Thompson writes with a poet’s careful eye and a novelist’s open heart.”- George Elliott Clarke, Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15)”A rare novel, by turns poetic, psychic, and down-to-earth, always wise and engaging, Over Our Heads affirms “the holiness of the heart’s affections” and will remain long in the reader’s memory.”- Elizabeth Greene, author of Moving and Understories”Over Our Heads is an immersive, elegant novel about two fascinating women who grapple with complex personal histories that exceed even their own understanding but which, nevertheless, they both strive to honour. This novel asks us, “What can be made of grief?” Andrea Thompson answers this question, singularly, with great wisdom, heart and lyrical beauty.” – Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of All The Broken Things