The Lost Salt Gift of Blood
Alistair MacLeod's short stories know everything about your heart. Each of the stories in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood will enter your chest to beat alongside that startled red engine of your life: sometimes as a healing doctor, sometimes as a terrifying predator. All of the stories are set on the ruggedly beautiful island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, a place where heart and home are often in conflict. Nurtured by a landscape rich in serenity and wisdom but poor in economic opportunity, MacLeod's characters are at once unique to that mountainous isle and universal in their reluctant migrations. In "The Boat, " for example--surely one of the finest stories in the language--an only son watches his numerous sisters, "the daughters of the room and of the house, " work and eventually abandon the house in which they were born for educations and romances in distant cities. Torn between the schoolbooks his mother pointedly disparages and his father's ailing health, the son denies his father's own wishes and quits school to "remain with him as long as he lives and . . . fish the seas together. " The father's calm protests end with the chilling warning, "I hope you will remember what you have said. " This time depicting the arduous, life-threatening occupation of mining rather than fishing, "The Vastness of the Dark" similarly combines tenderness and tragedy across a generational divide. Each story is pitch-perfect, with an evolving, patient tone that unfailingly offers the right phrase or observation at the right time. Contested only by Alice Munro as the finest Canadian short story writer, Alistair MacLeod offers the rare combination of a craft so polished it is transparent and an emotional intelligence that is both hard-fought and -won and quietly detached. --Darryl Whetter Author(s): Alistair MacLeod. Binding Mass Market Paperback. Publisher(s): New Canadian Library. Label: New Canadian Library.
| Fabricant: | New Canadian Library |
| Numéro de la pièce: | |
| Prix le plus bas (CAD): | 11,17 $ |
Caractéristiques du produit |
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| Auteur : | Alistair Macleod |
| Format : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Marque : | New Canadian Library |
| Title : | Title S-T |
