Stone Watermelon, The

Nominated for the Governor General's Award for Fiction, A Stone Watermelon offers an irresistible selection of stories and characters: Truman Leonard, a retired crop-duster, failed strawberry-farmer and co-owner of the No Place Bar and Grill; Mrs. Alberta, the lonely widow ever-vigilant and on guard for the Queen; Alice, a farmwife who contemplates an affair with the hired hand while her husband barks orders to her over the CB radio; Ben and Julian, long-time friends who dream about the "Maltese Mistress" in the dusty prairie bar.

These unsentimental and often passionate accounts of life in modern rural communities marked Lois Braun's debut.