The Upending of Wendall Forbes

Fiction
Pub date: September 19, 2025
5.5 x 8.5 in | 290 pgs
Trade Paperback: 9781988989969
ePub: 9781988989976

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Wendall and Ruby Forbes are confronting the vagaries of aging boomers: – sleeplessness, loneliness, memory loss, and the fear Ruby is showing signs of dementia. A blizzard hits their small town of Twenty-Six Mile House and a remarkable, perhaps unbelievable, band of strangers — : an Indigenous Colombian refugee, his environmental academic wife, an environmental academic, and their child; a young man on an accidental journey quest; a teenage activist and her ten-year-old gay half-brother; and a sleep consultant in from Indianapolis —– all take refuge in the Forbeses’ home.

In this heartwarming, funny, wise, and hopeful story, the companionship of strangers, a foul-mouthed raven, and a lynx, restore Wendall and Ruby’s hope for the future.

Praise for The Upending of Wendall Forbes

When angels start shutting your mouth it’s time to throw in the towel or pay attention. In David Giuliano’s new novel, The Upending of Wendall Forbes, he chooses the latter and we the reader are the better for it. A Northern Ontario survival tale dressed up as an unexpected Christmas miracle, Giuliano weaves a rich and multi-layered tapestry, tackling aging and alienation with a wry grace and robust spirituality. Both playful and profound, he reminds us that sometimes all we need is an old-fashioned winter blizzard to plunge us back into ourselves.

Rod Carley, award-winning author of RUFF

About the Author

David Giuliano is an award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction. His first novel, The Undertaking of Billy Buffone (Latitude 46, 2021), was awarded the 2022 Bressani Prize for Fiction. It’s Good to Be Here: Stories We Tell About Cancer is a memoir about the power of story to heal. Postcards from the Valley, a collection of essays, was a Canadian bestseller. He has also published two illustrated children’s books. David lives on the north shore of Lake Superior.