Theresa Shea - Theresa Shea, Author

WELCOME

Theresa Shea’s widely-celebrated debut novel, The Unfinished Child, was published in 2013. It sold over 12,000 copies, was a popular book club selection, and was nominated for several awards. The Shade Tree, winner of the 2020 Guernica Prize for best novel manuscript and the 2022 Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction (Alberta Literary Awards), is her much-anticipated follow-up.

“One of the most powerful Alberta writers of this decade . . .”

The St. Albert Gazette.

“In its account of almost half a century in the lives of two white southern sisters and of the African Americans whose experiences are inextricable from theirs, The Shade Tree is brutally personal, heartbreakingly political – and remarkably written. Theresa Shea has combined boldness and subtlety with swaths of compassion to come up with a novel that’s both complicated and ferociously clear.”

Joan Barfoot

“In her nuanced portrait of families riven by race and sex, Theresa Shea offers a searing indictment of Jim Crow’s corrosive influence that, if unleashed and unquestioned, can make monsters of us all. Beautifully and unflinchingly written, this is a novel for our times.”

Terry Gamble

What they are saying about The Shade Tree:

"In its account of almost half a century in the lives of two white Southern sisters and of the African Americans whose experiences are inextricable from theirs, The Shade Tree is brutally personal, heartbreakingly political – and remarkably written. Theresa Shea has combined boldness and subtlety with swaths of compassion to come up with a novel that's both complicated and ferociously clear."

In her nuanced portrait of families riven by race and sex, Theresa Shea offers a searing indictment of Jim Crow’s corrosive influence that, if unleashed and unquestioned, can make monsters of us all. Beautifully and unflinchingly written, this is a novel for our times.

"Theresa Shea’s The Shade Tree reminds me thematically of Lee’s novel. It, too, is set in the south of the States in a similar, though far more expansive, time period; it follows the lives of two young white girls – sisters – coming of age and exploring their positions in the world as white, as women, and as white women. Where the novel differs from Lee’s, though, is that it gives Sliver Lanier, a Black midwife, a voice of her own."

Mesmerizing, engrossing, and brilliantly plotted, this is an achievement that will echo long after the last page is turned.

NEWS

Writers spread the words at STARFest, Edmonton Poetry Festival

St. Albert Gazette: One of the most powerful Alberta writers of this decade will be a special guest at STARFest Conversations on Sunday. Theresa Shea, a historical fiction novelist, will

The Shade Tree: A Finalist for the Airdrie Reads Festival

There is no Event

“Every once in a while a book comes along that impacts me on an extraordinary level, and I want to encourage everyone I know to read it, and I want to talk about it, because it makes me think and feel so deeply. The Unfinished Child is one such book.”

The 49th Parallel