Lucy and her eight-month-old son live in a Winnipeg housing project filled with single mothers on the dole. Still dealing with her own mother’s sudden death, and new to the ever-multiplying complications of life on welfare, Lucy strikes up a friendship with her neighbour, Lish. On the whole, they’re pretty happy .

. . But Lucy wants to make sure they stay happy.

And she has a plan. Told with Toews’s signature scalding wit and deep compassion, Summer of my Amazing Luck is a brilliantly funny book about the intricacies of friendship, grief, and poverty. ‘[A] picaresque account of two welfare moms having loopy adventures and getting by in the city…