In We Are What We Mourn Priscila Uppal examines why and how the work of mourning has drastically changed in the latter half of the twentieth century, focusing on the strong pattern in contemporary English-Canadian elegy that emphasizes connection rather than separation between the living and the dead. Uppal offers a penetrating reading of Canadian elegies that radically challenges English and American elegy traditions as well as long-standing psychological models for successful mourning. She sets up useful categories for elegy study - parental elegies, elegies for places, and elegies for...

The most common phrase in print is "cover before striking," a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers.

Uppal's characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. The pyromaniac at the heart of the title story -- winner of the Gloria Vanderbilt Short Fiction Prize -- desperately uses fire to reconnect with lost lovers and family members. In "Vertigo," an injured Olympic athlete becomes a research guinea pig in a...

Imaginations run wild in this strangely beautiful and funny story loosely based on Uppal's critically acclaimed memoir. Renata travels to Brazil to reunite with the mother who abandoned her when she was just five years old, but in Rio, she discovers more than she bargained for in her quest to uncover the truth of who abandoned whom.