The Colony of Unrequited Dreams: A Novel

Product Details

• Notes: BUY WITH Poise, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and overhaul to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• ISBN13: 9780385495431
• Educate: New

Description

A mystery and a love story spanning five decades, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an epic portrait of passion and ambition, set against the beautiful, brutal landscape of Newfoundland. In this widely acclaimed novel, Johnston has created two of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: Joey Smallwood, who claws his way up from poverty to become New Foundland's first premier; and Sheilagh Fielding, who renounces her father's wealth to become a popular columnist and writer, a gifted satirist who casts a haunting shadow on Smallwood's life and career.

The two meet as children at school and grow to realize that their lives are irreversibly intertwined, bound together by a secret they don't know they share. Smallwood, always on the make, torn between love of country and fear of failure, is as reluctant to trust the private truths of his heart as his rival and savior, Fielding--brilliant, hard-drinking, and unconventionally sexy. Their story ranges from small-town Newfoundland to New York City, from the harrowing ice floes of the seal hunt to the lavish drawing rooms of colonial governors, and combines erudition, comedy, and unflagging narrative brio in a manner reminiscent of John Irving and Charles Dickens. A tragicomic elegy for the "colony of unrequited dreams" that is Newfoundland, Wayne Johnston's masterful tribute to a people and a place establishes him as a novelist who is as profound as he is funny, with an impeccable sense of the intersection where private lives and history collide.

---

In 1949, Joseph Smallwood became the first premier of the newly federated Canadian province of Newfoundland. Predictably, and almost immediately, his name retreated to the footnotes of history. And yet, as Wayne Johnston makes plain in his epic and affectionate fifth novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Smallwood's life was endearingly emblematic, an instance of an extraordinary man emerging at a propitious moment. The particular charm of Johnston's book, however, lies not merely in unveiling a career that so seamlessly coincided with the burgeoning self-consciousness of Newfoundland itself, but in exposing a simple truth--namely, that history is no more than the accretion of lived lives.

Born into debilitating poverty, Smallwood is sustained by a bottomless faith in his own industry. His unabashed ambition is to "rise not from rags to riches, but from obscurity to world renown." To this end, he undertakes tasks both sublime and baffling--walking 700 miles along a Newfoundland railroad line in a self-martyring union drive; narrating a homespun radio spot; and endlessly irritating and ingratiating himself with the Newfoundland political machine. His opaque and constant incitement is an unconsummated love for his childhood friend, Sheilagh Fielding. Headstrong and dissolute, she weaves in and out of Smallwood's life like a salaried goad, alternately frustrating and illuminating his ambitions. Smallwood is harried as well by Newfoundland's subtle gravity, a sense that he can never escape the tug of his native land, since his only certainty is the island itself--that "massive assertion of land, sea's end, the outer limit of all the water in the world, a great, looming, sky-obliterating chunk of rock."

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams bogs down after a time in its detailing of Smallwood's many political intrigues and in the lingering matter of a mysterious letter supposedly written by Fielding. However, when he speculates on the secret motives of his peers, or when he reveals his own hyperbolic fantasies and grandiose hopes--matters no one would ever confess aloud--the novel is both apt and amiable. Best of all is to watch Smallwood's inevitable progress toward a practical cynicism. It seems nothing less than miraculous that his countless disappointments pave the way for his ascension, that his private travails ultimately align with the land he loves. This is history resuscitated. --Ben Guterson

---

Customer Reviews

mackmurr
I traveled in Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador for two months in 2009 and fell in love with the place and its people. While there I learned of Joey Smallwood, the leader of the confederation movement in the 1940s and long-time premiere of the new Canadian province.

Colony of Unrequited Dreams is a fictional account of the real-life Joey Smallwood, who rose from poverty to near-total political power in the Newfoundland of the 1920s-1970s. Joey is loved or hated to this day, and this book should not disappoint either faction. A scrambler with great love of island and self, a populist and a socialist, a pragmatist, and (according to the book) a failed husband and father.

The story is beautifully told with much attention to the detail of life in Newfoundland in those early years, and the politics of an area dominated for centuries by European fishing exploiters and largely ignored by everybody else.

Johnston tells his story with good puns, ironic humor and little cheer, but that's Newfoundland. Loose ends are wrapped up near the end by a long soliloquy from Fielding, Smallwood's fictional thorn and love throughout his life. This literary technique seemed a little inept, but otherwise it was a great book, especially enjoyable for those with a taste for Newfoundland.

2010-01-03 (Roseville, CA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

A great book
I'm embarrassed to say that I never heard of the author before I picked this up in a 2nd hand shop. What can I say? Great story, well written and excellent character development.

2009-10-08 (Asia) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

What a disappointment!
I cannot imagine how anyone could give Colony of Unrequited Dreams 4 or 5 stars. After reading the positive reviews posted, I could hardly wait to get a copy of the book and start reading. Were we reading the same book?? Smallwood and Fielding were 2 of the most unappealing characters I have ever encountered, and I am a voracious and critical reader (1000-2000 pages per week on average) who regularly attends 3 different book discussion groups. And I am Canadian, just for the record.

The two main characters were mule-headed and self-destructive to the extreme. They needed to be slapped silly. They were a complete turn-off, not to mention the very lame ending of the book. I regret the hours I wasted reading it.

2009-07-16 | Book Diva | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

---

Wayne Johnston Rocks!
Another masterful story by author Wayne Johnston, the best story teller I have read in a long time. The story flows from beginning to end as his characters take you along with them through Newfoundland. Any lover of a good yarn will love this tale.

2007-07-31 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

People in History
The book combines a fascinating account of the political development of Newfoundland, seen through three sets of eyes, those of Smallwood, Fielding and Prowse, with the single-minded dedication of Smallwood to "make something of himself". That he does so to the exclusion of all personal social matters seems not to belittle him as a person, as his goal includes the betterment of the people of Newfoundland. The descriptions of the life and poverty in Newfoundland in the early years, along with the exploitation of the island by almost everyone, is extremely interesting, but it is s little tragic that his single-mindedness of purpose precludes him from, possibly, realizing great joy and fulfillment in his personal relationships. A most interesting and readable book.

2007-06-30 (Australia) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

The Divine Ryans

Description

---

Customer Reviews

Sharp-witted coming-of-age tale
Hilarious and scalpel sharp, Wayne Johnston's 1990 novel looks back at 1967, the awful year following the death of 9-year-old Draper Doyle Ryan's father. Narrator and stumbling hero, Draper Doyle battles the buffeting winds of his formidable relatives, the terrors of burgeoning sexuality and the mystifying appearances of his father's ghost.

The Newfoundland Ryans, a viciously insular clan known throughout the city of St. John's as "Divine" for their plethora of priests and nuns, own a failing newspaper and a thriving funeral home. After his father's death, Draper Doyle, his 12-year-old sister Mary (a marvelous mix of awkward, kindly, petty and roguish adolescence) and their mother, Linda, are forced to move in with the family matriarch, Aunt Philomena, their own home sold to keep the Catholic-biased "Daily Chronicle" afloat.

Also housed at Aunt Phil's is caustic and irreverent Uncle Reginald, whose house had gone into the maw of the "Chronicle" ten years before. Aunt Phil's siblings, the sanctimonious, sadistic Father Seymour and crippled Sister Louise, are frequent visitors and supporters of Phil's narrow-minded, humorless tyranny.

Formidable Aunt Phil rules the roost with implacable righteousness, dragging Draper Doyle to strangers' wakes at the funeral home, dragging her sister-in-law to the cemetery. She celebrates her own widowhood and Linda's too, saying, "He's free now...free from the marriage bed."

Early on, she announces that Draper Doyle will forego his beloved hockey to become one of Father Seymour's "Number," a group of 100 orphans who sing in a chorus, tap dance and box. A fanatical Montreal Canadiens (Habs) fan, Draper Doyle plays goal because he can't skate well enough to be anything else. Unfortunately, he's not much of a goalie either.

"I subscribed to the little-known dodge ball school of goaltending, which was founded on the economy of pain principle, which stated that if it would hurt more to stop a shot than to let it in the net, you should let it in. In short, I played as if the point of playing goal was to keep the puck from hitting me."

But Father Seymour has no intention of spoiling his Number with untalented Draper Doyle and shunts him aside while compelling him, nevertheless, to attend practices. Bored and miserable, Draper Doyle finds some solace in his Uncle Reg's sessions of "psycho-oralysis," "the opposite of psychoanalysis."

Uncle Reg institutes the sessions because of his nephew's frequent nightmares and sighting of his father's ghost, always with hockey puck in hand. "He told me the job of an analyst was to listen while the job of an oralyst was to speak. The job of an analyst was to take his patient seriously. The job of an oralyst was to make him laugh." The oralyst can lie, veer off on irrelevant tangents and have fun at the patient's expense - literally.

Since the sessions will cost him half his allowance, Draper Doyle asks if they will do him any good. " `You should consider yourself lucky,' he said. `Hamlet, who also saw his father's ghost, did not have nearly so nice an uncle.'"

Draper Doyle's year is punctuated by towering moments - his "last" hockey competition against his sister, the Number's Christmas concert disrupted by his father's appearance, his first and final boxing match. Between these crisis crescendos, the rich interplay of Ryans keeps things hopping through the nightmare of weekly confessions to Father Seymour, televised Habs games and psychological warfare, until repressed memories about his father's death begin to surface in Draper Doyle, leading to terrible but liberating understanding.

Johnston ("The Colony of Unrequited Dreams") writes with seemingly effortless wit and insight. His characters, no matter how awful, weak or bumbling, are vividly human and Draper Doyle's story is heart-breakingly, side-splittingly compelling.

2007-07-27 (Marathon, FL USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Divine Johnston
Another great by Wayne Johnston. I first got into this author with the book Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and while a bit slow, you could hear a certain voice in his writing. Divine Ryans didn't have a chance to be slow. It's a fairly short read, yet it's near impossible to put down. If you want an awesome read, with quite a change of pace from your average novel, make sure to pick this one up; the view from a child's perspective is worth it alone.

2005-03-06 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Poor kid!
I picked this book up mainly for the name and intriguing cover (yes, you can pick a book by the cover!). Inside was a look into a child's life, reminding me of Angela's Ashes... this poor child suffered at the hands of his relatives and lineage. I probably wouldn't read it again, but I will pass it along to my friends who read.

2003-06-02 (South Dakota, United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Good, Not Great
And I expected great what with Catholic guilt and hockey and comic writing all in one novel. There are some very funny moments -- for example, a devastating take on tap dancing and the poor starving children of -- in this case -- Latin America. The memories of the Canadiens and the other original NHL teams before expansion, and the frigid days and nights of street hockey are exactly right. Plus, Uncle Reginald and Draper Doyle are consistently engaging and give the book most of its considerable energy, although it stretches credulity that a nine year old boy should so completely recall over several detailed pages a dream absolutely crucial to the novel's climatic moments. Bigger problems: Draper's mother is too peripheral, as ethereal as the ghost father, and Aunt Phil and Uncle Seymour are so unremittingly mean-spirited that they become more parody than human. Finally, the twist as Draper Doyle begins to recall the lost week of his father's death is unexpectedly nasty, and leaves this novel uneasily perched between the comic and terrible personal discovery. Still, while The Divine Ryans is not a must read, it is the work of an author with talent clearly under development.

2001-02-19 (New York) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

---

Unexpected Divinity
I found this book quite intriging. In the spirit of "American Beauty", it is a tale about a dysfuntional family. It is told as almost a bitter sweet memoir of a real person's childhood in Newfoundland in the 1960's. You learn to dislike and like the different characters in the childs eyes and see how his divine family has truely fallen from grace. The characters in the book that should be the most devout and true are the most ignorant and irritating, these people being the preist and nun in the family. The leader of their Irish-Catholic, you could almost say cult, is the aunt of Draper Doyle (the young child). She is the most nauseating character I have yet to come across. She is filled with Hipocrisy and all the things that she is against. She also threatens the safty of Draper Doyle's newly widowed mother. Their entire future depends on Draper Doyle's recognization of his nightmares which cause him unbelievable embarassment in the face of his relative. His only refuge from his devout aunts and uncles is his uncle reginald who is one of the most endearing and genuinly funny characters I have come across. This book is fantasticly written (unlike this review, I have need of spell check) and keeps your attention from one paragraph to the next which is always a Divine thing in a book.

2000-06-17 (New York) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 4

---

Story of Bobby O'Malley, The

Description

---

Customer Reviews

A Delightful Read
This book is a slice of Newfoundland life. It is a terrific book! I read it as a part of my degree, and have recommended it to every Newfoundlander, or person who wants to know what a childhood in Newfoundland is like. Wayne Johnson has captured a place in my heart with this warm book! Do enjoy, it is great!

2000-02-24 (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

---

Fantastic book
A very touching, very funny account of a young boy coming of age in Newfoundland. The wry comments and observations by Bobby O'Malley's father are priceless.

1998-12-05 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

---

The Navigator of New York

Description

Devlin Stead grows up a lonely orphan in late 19th century Newfoundland. When he begins receiving letters from the esteemed but mysterious explorer Dr. Frederick Cook, they entirely change his understanding of who he is and what he might become. Invited by Dr. Cook to become his apprentice, Dev eagerly heads for New York City, where he is introduced into society and joins his mentor in epic attempts to reach the North Pole before Cook’s archrival Robert Edwin Peary. When Dev is thrust into international controversy, he must master a series of revelations about his family that will determine his fate.

In spellbinding prose, the author of the acclaimed Colony of Unrequited Dreams recreates the romance, the politics and the peril of the legendary race for the North Pole. Brilliantly rooted in history, The Navigator of New York is a fascinating exploration of the quest for discovery, and how it is remembered.

---

Customer Reviews

Deja vu
After enjoying my first exposure to Wayne Johnston with his latest, The Custodian of Paradise, I rushed to the local library to delve into some of his prior works. This one was a mistake. I'm experiencing a regrettable deja vu in The Navigator of New York, with the plot device of a teenager discovering, via surreptitiously conveyed and lengthy letters, that his parentage is not what he thought. What is Johnston's fixation with women marrying men they do not love because they're carrying another man's child, and then the child discovering years later, from the sperm donor, in the most convoluted and protracted manner imaginable, that he/she is being observed or protected by his/her actual father? This one cannot sustain my interest - been there, done that.

2007-06-17 (Hanover, MA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

---

SLLOOOOW torture
Can a story get any slower? I kept waiting for something exciting to happen and finally gave up after almost 200 pages. The characters are just plain strange and pathetic. The initial meeting between Devlin and Dr. Cook, which should have been exciting, was very anticlimactic....probably because Dr. Cook seemed a little kooky! And if he repeated the story of his past to Devlin one more time, I would have lost my mind. It was repeated at least twice - once in a letter and then again verbally when they met. It was all just plain dull!
On a positive note, I thought the author had a beautiful writing style and I enjoyed his use of words and expression of thoughts. I think that those who enjoy quality literary style would find Mr. Johnston's written words enough to keep reading (the reason for 3 stars).
Definitely too slow for me and not enough action to keep me interested past the halfway point. Also, despite the female figure on the cover, this felt like a "guy's book" to me - a topic men might find more interesting.

2006-11-13 | HF Buff (Flagsaff, AZ) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

---

Another Canadian disappointment
I chose to read this book based on it's wonderful reviews. Perhaps my expectations were a bit too high. While I enjoyed the exploration adventure of the story, the poorly veiled "intrigue" did nothing for me. Each time the story was becoming unbearably boring, new, previously unrevealed information would be unveiled by the superficial Dr. Cook. I made myself finish this book, but was extremely disappointed by the ending, which after a long struggle through, culminated in about 20 pages. Good thing I got this for free....

2003-11-07 (Alberta, Canada) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

---

The best book I've read in a long time
If you are even the least bit interested in exploration this is a fantastic book.

2003-09-23 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

Somebody doesn't think much of Mr. Peary....
Some of the reviews here have been focussing on this book as a "revisionist history" re Peary and Arctic exploration, but that part of this book is secondary. The real focus of the book is Devlin Stead's life and discoveries about his family, whose story changes through several revelations throughout the book (maybe too many times would be one criticism of this book). Generally well-written and a good description of turn of the (20th) century New York and pre-Canada Newfoundland, recommended if you like a good historical read.

2003-05-16 (Interstellar Suburbia) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 4

---

Baltimore's Mansion: A Memoir

Description

In this loving memoir Wayne Johnston returns to Newfoundland-the people, the place, the politics-and illuminates his family's story with all the power and drama he brought to his magnificent novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.

Descendents of the Irish who settled in Ferryland, Lord Baltimore's Catholic colony in Newfoundland, the Johnstons "went from being sea-fearing farmers to sea-faring fishermen." Each generation resolves to escape the hardships of life at sea, but their connection to this fantastically beautiful but harsh land is as eternal as the rugged shoreline, and the separations that result between generations may be as inevitable as the winters they endure. Unfulfilled dreams haunt this family history and make Baltimore's Mansion a thrilling and captivating book.

---

In this forceful, complex memoir, Wayne Johnston returns to the setting of his 1999 novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Johnston doesn't just come from Newfoundland, remotest of Canada's provinces; he comes from the Avalon Peninsula, the most isolated portion of Newfoundland (and confused in young Wayne's boyish imaginings with the mythical Avalon, where King Arthur sailed to be healed of mortal wounds). It's an apt metaphor for a land that "was the edge of the known world, and looked it." Avalon's natives fiercely resented the 1948 referendum that joined Newfoundland to the Canadian Confederation--especially Johnston's father, the memoir's central character, who keens for lost independence in a manner highly reminiscent of Stephen Dedalus's father in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Indeed, parallels with Ireland are evident throughout, not just because the Johnstons are descended from Irish immigrants but because the Newfoundlanders exhibit a similar passionate insularity and zest for feuding among themselves. Johnston's muscular, plainspoken prose bears little resemblance to that of James Joyce, but his themes of exile and loss, loyalty and betrayal, and an ancient culture's ambivalent relationship with modernity resonate with the great writer's most urgent concerns. --Wendy Smith

---

Customer Reviews

Baltimore's Mansion


Although I have not read "Baltimore's Mansion" yet I really enjoy Wayne Johnston's books. I'd bet anything that he would appreciate if his name was spelled Johnston rather than Johnson.

2009-06-27 | Just a book lover (Woodville, TX) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Smashingly Good!
Any book that can make a reader who hales from the land of pleasant living (i.e., the mid-Atlantic region of the United States) seriously consider spending a winter in Newfoundland is clearly worth reading. Wayne Johnston once again manages to turn what most of us would consider a very dull subject (growing up in Newfoundland) into a minor masterpiece. If you enjoyed "Colony of Unrequited Dreams," you will be equally charmed, intrigued and entranced by "Baltimore's Mansion" but in a more personal -- and, perhaps, more meaningful -- way. I expect that if Mr. Johnston were from the USA, his books would stay at the top of the best seller lists. As it is, he remains a bit of a hidden treasure. Perhaps "Baltimore's Mansion" will help change the situation.

2004-09-26 | Mike Harris (Alexandria, VA United States) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

The Real Newfoundland
An elegy for a country, a place, and a family - which can describe much of Maritime Canadian writing, but Johnston is such a gifted writer this one really stands out. Read it for the description of the horse leading the way home in blinding snow, read it for story of blacksmithing, just read it. And if you like this, you'll love "the Danger Tree" by David MacFalane - a different part of Newfoundland, a different family, another incredible writer.

2001-06-18 (Mt Desert, ME United States) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5

---

NOT FOR POSTING
Just wanted you to know that your review of this book has a factual inaccuracy.

The Avalon Peninsula ISN'T the most remote part of Newfoundland.Quite the opposite - its by far the most developed, densely populated part of the entire province. St. John's is on Avalon, as are most of the province's towns. Your reviewer was thinking of the Great Northern Peninsula (where Shipping News takes place) - although the most remote part of the province is certainly Northern Labrador.

2000-09-08 | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

---

Nationalism from Newfoundland
I don't know why I expected to read about the way of life in small Newfoundland communities, but I certainly didn't expect to read about the nationalist dreams of the people of the Avalon peninsula. This may be a good topic for a book, actually, but it would have to be better organized and more clear in its purpose than this aimless memoir. The main problem is that the author constantly laments Newfoundland's loss of independance, but never explains how or why Newfoundlanders would be better off as an independant country, or, failing that, why we should care.

2000-07-26 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 2

---

The Custodian of Paradise: A Novel

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780393331592
• Demand: USED - Very Good
• Notes: BUY WITH Faith, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and usefulness to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

A Book-of-the-Month Club "Best Novel of 2007." In the waning days of World War II, Sheilagh Fielding makes her way to a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland. But she soon comes to suspect another presence: that of a man known only as her Provider, who has shadowed her for twenty years.

Against the backdrop of Newfoundland's history and landscape, Fielding is a compelling figure. Taller than most men and striking in spite of her crippled leg, she is both eloquent and subversively funny. Her newspaper columns exposing the foibles and hypocrisies of her native city, St. John's, have made many powerful enemies for her, chief among them the man who fathered her children—twins—when she was fourteen. Only her Provider, however, knows all of Fielding's secrets. Reading group guide included.

---

Customer Reviews

Disappointed
Let me say upfront that I did not read "Colony" and was not aware that this was something of a second installment advancing the fictional lives of Joey Smallwood, Sheilagh Fielding, et al. I picked it up solely based on exceptional book reviews.

Although the book started out well, I found it stopped being interesting by the middle and was downright tedious by the end. The characters are underdeveloped, lead dull unexplored lives, and the storyline is advanced not by action but by long, tedious letters from the omnipresent "Provider" that explain why things are happening. Overall I regret spending so much time on this unsatisfying book when I have a stack of others waiting for their turn.

The author may deserve high praise for previous works, but those should not predispose a reviewer to issue less than an objective review of this book.

2010-01-30 (MONTANA UNITED STATES) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

---

Strangely compelling.
When I came to this book on my nightstand and read the blurb, I couldn't imagine why I had bought it in the first place. When you read descriptions of the plot, it seems, at best, dull.
But the writing is wonderful. And the details, and sense of place, are fantastic. I couldn't put this book down, and you won't be able to either.
Excellent.

2010-01-19 (Chicago, Illinois United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Articulately Depressing
Wayne Johnston is a favorite author of mine. He writes so beautifully but the heroine this time around chained me and dragged me into whatever abyss the author happened to be in at the time. I always enjoy the historical aspects of his work, and the colorful characters generally make one think, laugh and commiserate but I could only find despair in Sheleigh. Her sarcasm was clever and intriguing for about three chapters, then I had no further tolerance. It was difficult to finish.

2008-06-26 | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 3

---

great companion to colony of unrequited dreams
Johnston's excellent Colony of Unrequited Dreams featured Joey Smallwood
with Sheilagh Fielding as a strong secondary presence. This novel
reverses that order--it features Sheilagh Fielding with Joey Smallwood
more in the background. This is not a book that you can hurry through--
think of a cup of very hot, very rich coffee--you have to sip it and savor
it slowly.

The writing is superb--rich prose with a wonderful sense of time and
place. Sheilagh Fielding, for reasons unclear at first, takes up
residence on an island off Newfoundland's south coast--in an abandoned
fishing village. There's very little of the present--perhaps 90% of
the story is retrospective--a looking back at the events in her life.
At six feet three and sharp-tongued (to put it mildly) she has not made
many friends (other than Smallwood). But she has a mysterious "provider"
who has kept an eye on her. The provider's role slowly unfolds--and much
of what Sheilagh (and the reader) thought they knew about her (Sheilagh's)
life gets turned around. In a way, this reminds me of Robert Goddard's
novels (qv) where the past gets unravelled many years later--but in this
case (unlike Goddard's books) Sheilagh starts learning about the
provider when she's 16, and at age 44 (when the novel opens) she has
been learning bits and pieces since she was 16. For me, the process was
like slowly and carefully taking the many layers of wrappings off a very
delicate object.

Johnston has written another wonderful book--this doesn't have the
historical sweep of Colony--but it's layered and rich, and not to be
missed.

2007-06-03 (knoxville, tennessee United States) | Helpful Votes: 9 | Rating: 5

---

This man is a genius
I have to admit, Wayne Johnston could write about anything and I'd gladly read it, and the fact that critics have compared him to Dickens is no surprise to me. I would, without hesitation, say he is the greatest novelist of our time. His words are like a warm sea that I could float in all day, and the continuity between this book and The Colony is perfect.

Sheilagh Fielding is my favorite character of all time, and when I first heard Mr. Johnston was devoting an entire novel to her, I thought it was too good to be true. And it was definitely worth the wait. There could have been no better followup to The Colony, and The Guardian may even be a greater book, if that is possible. My hat is definitely off to Mr. Johnston, a true genius in our midst.

2007-05-30 (United States) | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

---