Critical Praise

“Put Kevin Patterson’s debut novel, Consumption, right at the top of your must-read list. This book is a staggeringly beautiful elegy for the traditional life of the Inuit, showing the inevitable loss when cultures collide . . . Consumption is not only a beautiful novel, but also an important one. Few people are in Patterson’s position of knowledge and experience, and so readers are given a special opportunity to learn about the Inuit, the changes in their lives, and what those changes suggest for human beings in general.”

——Edmonton Journal

“In this powerful first novel . . . Patterson seamlessly works murder, sex, and intrigue into the mix and offers a terrific cast that makes arctic life, and the ties of kin, palpable. He delivers a searingly visceral message about love, loss, and dislocation.”

——Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[The novel’s] thematic resonance, along with an understated humanism reminiscent of Anton Chekhov (incidentally, another physician), make Consumption a quietly devastating novel.”

——Vancouver Sun

“This is a dynamite first novel from Patterson. His broad life experience evidences itself on every page of this ambitious and tough-minded book."

——Winnipeg Free Press