Sydney Hegele (née Brooman) (they/them) was raised in Grimsby, Ontario. They attended Western University in London, Ontario, and currently live in Toronto. The Pump is their debut short fiction collection. Their story “The Bottom” was shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s 2020 Open Season Awards, and they have recent work in American Chordata, Thorn Literary Magazine, and other literary journals.
“Canadian author Sydney Warner Brooman’s debut collection of short
fiction instantly cements the non-binary writer as a name to watch.
Their gothic tales of fantastical creatures and forged family is
magical realism at its best. Drawn from Brooman’s upbringing in
Grimsby, Ont., the stories feel rooted in both the mythic and the
modern, touching on parenthood, loss and transitions.”—Chatelaine,
Best Buzzy Books "The Pump opens the door to a haunted world that
is not easily forgettable. But proceed with caution: this
collection will undoubtedly get under your skin."—Quill & Quire "In
foregrounding the queer aspects of their stories and literalizing
the horror that traditionally remains metaphorical, Brooman has
created a collection that doesn’t tug at the edges of our literary
pieties so much as tear them to shreds. By contorting beloved
symbols of Canada’s national literature and character into bizarre
and unfamiliar shapes, Brooman simultaneously locates their stories
within a tradition and explodes that tradition for future
practitioners."—Toronto Star "Hegele’s work has been compared to
that of Alice Munro, and, for once, this comparison is accurate:
Hegele is Munro through the looking-glass, and this collection is
Southern Ontario Gothic queered and rabid.”—Erin Della Mattia,
Prairie Fire "Brooman's writing is beautiful... Nightmarish and yet
somehow fantastical, [The Pump] explores the question of morality
in a town that represents the world at its most baldly
violent."—This Magazine "A strange and satisfying debut which,
despite its nightmarish magic, manages to capture something
terrifyingly real."—The Miramichi Reader “What a strange surprising
delight this collection was… at once untenable and grotesquely
beautiful.”– Heather O’Neill, author of When We Lost Our Heads "If
you left your small hometown because you were “different” – gay or
trans in particular – you will see yourself in this smart,
authentic and beautifully written book. If you didn’t, you will be
spellbound nonetheless."—Andrew Dobson "The Pump follows the
Southwestern Ontario Gothic tradition of Alice Munro, exposing the
warped underside of small-town Ontario through a series of
interconnected short stories... The Pump is strange, no doubt, but
it is delicious in its strangeness."—Erica McKeen, The Temz Review
"Brooman’s remarkably self-assured voice remains singular,
authentic and wry. The Pump will stay with you, leaving its taste
in your mouth: dread and mossy yellow water."—Broken Pencil “This
is the Southern Ontario that we don't openly acknowledge but that
scrapes at the back of our memories. The Pump shows us the surreal
violence of living in the 401's sprawl and the staggering beauty of
the nature that surrounds it. Don't be fooled by the nightmarish
quality of these stories: they are as real as the Mercury Villager
that Sydney Warner Brooman drives us in on. This is horror in broad
daylight. These are the living ghosts that haunt so many of us who
grew up here.”—Jia Qing Wilson-Yang, Lambda Award-winning author of
Small Beauty “The Pump is populated with the kind of tough,
awkward, dark, and tender characters you often find trapped in
small town, no-place Canada. You’ll also find beavers, salt domes,
a lighthouse, marshes, more beavers, a Mercury Villager,
mosquitoes, and the rest of the beavers. Brooman has woven an
inescapable, ferocious dream of a book. Good luck getting
out.”—John Elizabeth Stintzi, author of Vanishing Monuments
“Bristling with magic, horror, and romance, Sydney Warner Brooman’s
The Pump transforms small-town Southern Ontario into a place of
violence and sacrifice — or maybe presents it as it truly is. Like
nothing I’ve ever read before, these killer beavers, strange
diseases, and infectious waters wouldn't leave my head and drew me
back to their world again and again. If only I blurbed delightfully
weird books like this for the rest of my life, I'd be happy.”—Jess
Taylor, Author of Pauls and Just Pervs “This is what small-town
Ontario looks like when David Attenborough is a distant memory,
when social structures are as polluted as the water, when myth has
returned—big time—in mounting waves, sweeping our smaller stories
out to sea. I don’t what is more terrifying: that The Pump exists,
or that here, in this wretched, sinking place, you can find
something that you desperately love, something that you want to
survive. The Pump is an astonishing debut collection from a writer
who is just warming up.”—Tom Cull, author of Bad Animals
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