I have an other Atlantic Book Award winner to share with you, Scotch River by Linda Little.
Her prose is dark and breathtaking.
One of the things I enjoy about this book is the entrance of Cass Hutt, rodeo cowboy, into the small fishing village of Scotch River NS. Placing someone so obviously from away into the lives of an extraordinarily dysfunctional family allows the author to show that sometimes the things that make us different are, indeed, that things that unite us.
He finds a cast of characters so unable to communicate with each other, they wrap themselves in pain and solitude, brandishing each as badges of honour. If Cass is to find himself, he has to be able to make sense of these people and discover his connection to them.
Here are the opening words:
"Cass Hutt could not feel the land beneath his feet. Stone-cold sober and reeling around on nothing as though his flesh speckled out into air, as though ghost legs propped him up. He pulled off his boots at night and ran his hands down his calves, feeling skin on skin, seeking to reassure himself..."
Read the first chapter and buy the book through Penguin Canada.
Or you can buy it here.
Her prose is dark and breathtaking.
One of the things I enjoy about this book is the entrance of Cass Hutt, rodeo cowboy, into the small fishing village of Scotch River NS. Placing someone so obviously from away into the lives of an extraordinarily dysfunctional family allows the author to show that sometimes the things that make us different are, indeed, that things that unite us.
Illiterate and nearly amnesiac Cass, with only a deed to an unknown bit of land to guide him, walks from Alberta to Nova Scotia searching for his identity and something to ground him after his rodeo partner dies.
He finds a cast of characters so unable to communicate with each other, they wrap themselves in pain and solitude, brandishing each as badges of honour. If Cass is to find himself, he has to be able to make sense of these people and discover his connection to them.
Here are the opening words:
"Cass Hutt could not feel the land beneath his feet. Stone-cold sober and reeling around on nothing as though his flesh speckled out into air, as though ghost legs propped him up. He pulled off his boots at night and ran his hands down his calves, feeling skin on skin, seeking to reassure himself..."
Read the first chapter and buy the book through Penguin Canada.
Or you can buy it here.
I hope you enjoy Linda's book as much as I did.
Colleen
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