“The first thing you need to know: They’re not antiques.
The second thing you need to know: I’m not his daughter.”
Abandoned first by her father, and then by her mother, Frankie has been left in the care of her deeply religious grandmother. When her grandmother’s religious convictions tip into delusion, Frankie decides to run away.
Life on the street in Toronto is hard, and with winter coming, it gets tougher. This is when Frankie first meets Francis, a man old enough to be her father. He starts training her in “the game,” as she comes to call it; buying, stealing, and reselling the “inventory” at inflated prices. Through winter, spring, and early summer, the two become a team, traveling around small towns and villages in southern Ontario.
But it turns out life on the road holds dangers Frankie can’t anticipate, and her precarious world tips into disaster when Francis abandons her in an unfamiliar town. Betrayed, alone, and deserted, Frankie finds herself in a dangerous situation that will require all her skill and intelligence to survive.
The Antique Picker’s Daughter explores youth homelessness, human trafficking, and a young woman’s search for safety.
Melanie Dugan was born in San Francisco, and lived in Boston, Toronto, and London, England, before settling in Kingston, Ontario. She is the author of five novels: Hard White, Sometime Daughter, Revising Romance, Dead Beautiful, and Bee Summers. Her short stories have been shortlisted for several awards.
“She’s fifteen years old, homeless, cold, and hungry on the mean streets of Toronto when she meets Francis, the Antique Picker, who says she reminds him of his daughter. Reluctantly, she agrees to join him scouring the small towns of Ontario for treasures — preferably ones their owners don’t know are valuable. He even gives her his name: they are Francis Person, the Antique Picker, and Frances/Frankie Person, his daughter. It’s a pure
pleasure to spend time with them on the backroads.
But when he asks her to steal, and his mood suddenly shifts, Frankie must ask herself whether it’s time to walk away from the good thing they’ve got going. It turns out the key to Frankie’s future may lie in the Antique Picker’s past.
Dugan deftly navigates the story of this found and faulted family — one that makes Frankie feel like a wanted person for the first time in her life.”
— Sarah Withrow, author of Bat Summer
