CanLit Project Books 7-9

Book 7, Island (2001) - Alistair MacLeod *active*
From the back cover:
"Alistair MacLeod's collected stories, including two never before published, are gathered together for the first time in Island. These sixteen superbly crafted stories, most of them based in Cape Breton even if its people stray elsewhere, depict men and women living out their lives against the haunting landscape that surrounds them. Focusing on the complexities and abiding mysteries at the heart of human relationships, MacLeod maps the close bonds and impassable chasms that lie between man and woman, parent and child, and invokes memory and myth to celebrate the continuity of the generations, even in the midst of unremitting change. Eloquent, humane, life-affirming, the stories in this astonishing collection seize us from the outset and remain with us long after the final page."

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia article on Alistair MacLeod
the Wikipedia article on Cape Breton Island
the Wikipedia article on the mining disasters in Springhill, Nova Scotia
an interesting interview with Alistair MacLeod


Book 8, What's Bred in the Bone (Book II of the Cornish Trilogy) (1985) - Robertson Davies *active*
From the back cover:
"Francis Cornish was always good at keeping secrets. From the well-hidden family secret of his childhood to his mysterious encounters with a small-town embalmer, a master art restorer, a Bavarian countess, and various masters of espionage, the events in Francis's life were not always what they seemed."

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia article on Robertson Davies
the Wikipedia article on What's Bred in the Bone
Sir Galahad by G.F. Watts
Love Locked Out by Anna Lea Merritt
The Virgin of the Consolation by William Adolphe Bouguereau
The Doctor by Luke Fildes
Flaming June by Frederic, Lord Leighton
portraits done by Harry Furniss, caricaturist and author of How to Draw in Pen and Ink
An Allegory of Time by Angelo Bronzino


Book 9, No Great Mischief (2001) - Alistair MacLeod *active*
From the back cover:
"Alexander MacDonald guides us through his family's mythic past as he recollects the heroic stories of his people: loggers, miners, drinkers, adventurers; men forever in exile, forever linked to their clan. There is the legendary patriarch who left the Scottish Highlands in 1779 and resettled in 'the land of trees,' where his descendants became a separate Nova Scotia clan. There is the team of brothers and cousins, expert miners in demand around the world for their dangerous skills. And there is Alexander and his twin sister, who have left Cape Breton and prospered, yet are haunted by the past. Elegiac, hypnotic, by turns joyful and sad, No Great Mischief is a spellbinding story of family, loyalty, and of the blood ties that bind us to the land from which our ancestors came."

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia article on Alistair MacLeod
the Wikipedia article on Cape Breton Island
an interesting interview with Alistair MacLeod