Set mainly in Toronto, the novel also takes us to London, Scotland, Germany, and New York as we follow the escapades of two of Fraser's fictional characters.
The musical talents and affinities of autistic people are widely recognized, but few have thought to ask autistic people themselves about how they make and experience music, and why it matters them that they do.
An ordinary life, if there is such a thing, has a story to tell - and other lives to enrich. This is a story of personal growth, from the dismal and disinterested to the aware and inspired.
In The Bedside Book of Beasts Gibson evokes a profound sense of the eternal, often unsettling, connection between the human animal and the free, untamed beasts of the wilderness.
The story is one of disillusionment, disregard for fairness and civility, and the struggle for change. The story is specific to a location but it is universal. It is of a certain time-frame but it is timeless.