Amy Mattes
author
2024
Late September
Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze Medal Recipient
Late September is an intimate coming-of-age tale exploring the nuances of love, trauma and mental health. In the summer of 2000, Ines, a grief-stricken skateboarder beginning to explore her sexuality, leaves behind her sheltered hometown on a Greyhound bus bound for Montreal. In awe of the city’s vibrancy, and armed with a journal and a Discman, Ines sets out to find a new way, befriending April, a latex-loving goth who gets her a job as a cam-girl. In the midst of a bar fight Ines meets Max, a magnetic skateboarder, whom she quickly falls for. As summer fades to fall Ines tries to uphold the bliss of their intoxicating summer, realizing that while she has escaped the confines of her small-town life, she cannot escape her past. The city changes and their romance darkens as Ines learns that Max is experiencing mental health challenges, all while a regular at the cam studio gets threateningly close. Ines learns that loving herself first requires trial and error―and that love is not always an innocent word.
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Late September is a courageous, vivid, gritty, and surprisingly redemptive portrayal of a young woman in emotional and physical flux. I adored this novel’s main character Ines, who is a skateboarder, a sister, a friend, and a lover, but also a kind of lightning rod for the wounded souls that surround her. With surprises packed into every page, this story addresses trauma and its aftermath with a striking power.
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― Michael Christie, author of Greenwood, If I Fall, If I die and others.
Praise & Reviews
Late September is a breathtaking ride through an unbounded and sensual Montreal. Amy Mattes’ lyrical prose allows us to fall in love with Ines, desperate to be seen, and whose voice rests on the sublime tipping point between vulnerability and sentimentality.― Susan Sanford Blades, author of Fake It So Real
― Susan Sanford Blades, author of Fake It So Real
“Late September is a personal epic, a singular account of early adult life in a new city full of promises and disenchantment. A prose that is ruthlessly realistic yet almost magical and poetic, which blends the city life with the protagonist’s inner struggles and her intimate universe, giving us an authentic coming of age tale, powerful and beautifully crafted.”
― Stephane Larue, author of Le Plongeur, finalist for the Governor General’s Award for French-language fiction
2025
Separate Ways: poems
Separate Ways is in the business of delivering emotions. A cutting, honest portrayal of what it means to resolve the past while preparing for the future. The looping iteration that while change is inevitable, the response is individual. With humility and humour, these poems sharpen the edges between freedom and loneliness, laying it all out from adolescence, one-night stands, marriage, divorce and parenthood. The contents of this book are a shadow of identity, a sounding board, cheaper than therapy and more pert and provocative.
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