Download or read book The Divine Ryans by Wayne Johnston written by Wayne Johnston and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Divine Ryans written by Wayne Johnston and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wayne Johnston is Canada's Roddy Doyle" Anne-Marie McDonald, author of Fall Down on Your Knees Young Draper Doyle Ryan lives in a most peculiar household. His relations, proudly eccentric and passionately Catholic, run a rather shabby newspaper, a funeral home, a convent and an orphanage. When they're not attending wakes or going to confession, they're watching Hockey Night in Canada, cheering for their beloved -- and Catholic -- Montreal Canadiens in their never-ending jousts with the Protestant Toronto Maple Leafs. A bewildered Draper Doyle tries to make sense of all this. But he's plagued by the first stirrings of his own budding sexuality. Then there are the sudden ghostly appearances of his recently deceased father. What is the secret behind that death, he wonders. And will the Habs beat the Leafs and win the Stanley Cup? Canadian reviews: "An authentic comic genius" Montreal Gazette "An absolute stunner -- achingly funny, needle sharp and packing an unexpected wallop . . . The literary equivalent of a small-budget movie masterpiece with heart, soul and brains" Time Out
Download or read book The Divine Ryans written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 1998-10-13 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this beloved, bestselling novel which has been unavailable for some time, young Draper Doyle Ryan tries to come to terms with the mysterious death of his father as he struggles, in touching, comic fashion, with budding adolescence and the strange demands of his proudly eccentric family. When first published in 1990, The Divine Ryans received unanimous critical praise and won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award; Wayne Johnston himself was hailed as one of Canada's most distinctive comic talents.
Download or read book Baltimore s Mansion written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-01-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baltimore's Mansion introduces us to the Johnstons of Ferryland, a Catholic colony founded by Lord Baltimore in the 1620s on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland, and centres on three generations of fathers and sons. Filled with heart-stopping description and a cast of stubborn, acerbic, yet utterly irresistible family members, it is an evocation of a time and a place reminiscent of Wayne Johnston's best fiction.
Download or read book Human Amusements written by Wayne Johnston and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering further evidence of his astounding range as a novelist, the bestselling author of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York crafts a hilarious and moving paean to the dawn of the television age. Henry Prendergast grew up on television—not merely watching it, but starring in the wildly popular children’s show “Rumpus Room.” Cast in the roles of Bee Good and Bee Bad by his mother Audrey, the show’s creator, Henry came of age along with the new medium—one that would soon propel his family out Toronto’s middle-class life and into the tabloids. Henry’s father Peter, a would-be novelist, refuses to have any part in his wife’s burgeoning television empire, but commits himself instead to the task of being a walking, talking—mostly scathing—reminder of the family’s “humble beginnings.” Then, on the heels of Rumpus Room, Audrey dreams up The Philo Farnsworth Show, loosely based on the life story of the young teen credited with inventing the tube and starring Henry in the lead role. Rapidly amassing a cult-like following of “Philosophers,” the show challenges the Prendergasts anew. Forced into increasing isolation by a fervent media, they must work harder than ever to not let success get the best of them.
Download or read book The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, a Canadian bestseller, is a novel about Newfoundland that centres on the story of Joe Smallwood, the true-life controversial political figure who ushered the island through confederation with Canada and became its first premier. Narrated from Smallwood's perspective, it voices a deep longing on the part of the Newfoundlander to do something significant, “commensurate with the greatness of the land itself.” Smallwood’s chronicle of his development from poor schoolboy to Father of the Confederation is a story full of epic journeys and thwarted loves, travelling from the ice floes of the seal hunt to New York City, in a style reminiscent at times of John Irving, Robertson Davies and Charles Dickens. Absorbing and entertaining, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams provides us with a deep perspective on the relationship between private lives and what comes to be understood as history and shows, as E. Annie Proulx commented, “Wayne Johnston is a brilliant and accomplished writer.” The New York Times said, “this prodigious, eventful, character-rich book is a noteworthy achievement: a biting, entertaining and inventive saga.... a brilliant and bravura literary performance.”
Download or read book The Navigator of New York written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2011-07-27 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wayne Johnston’s breakthrough epic novel The Colony of Unrequited Dreams was published in several countries and given high praise from the critics. It earned him nominations for the highest fiction prizes in Canada and was a national bestseller. His American editor said he hadn’t found such an exciting author since he discovered Don DeLillo. Johnston, who has been writing fiction for two decades, launched his next and sixth novel across the English-speaking world to great anticipation. The Navigator of New York is set against the background of the tumultuous rivalry between Lieutenant Peary and Dr. Cook to get to the North Pole at the beginning of the 20th century. It is also the story of a young man’s quest for his origins, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to the bustling streets of New York, and the remotest regions of the Arctic. Devlin Stead’s father, an Arctic explorer, stops returning home at the end of his voyages and announces he is moving to New York, as “New York is to explorers what Paris is to artists”; eventually he is declared missing from an expedition. His mother meets an untimely death by drowning shortly after. Young Devlin, who barely remembers either of them, lives contently in the care of his affectionate aunt and indifferent uncle, until taunts from a bullying fellow schoolboy reveal dark truths underlying the bare facts he knows about his family. A rhyme circulated around St. John’s further isolates Devlin, always seen as an odd child who had inherited his parents’ madness and would likely meet a similar fate. Devlin, who has always learned about his father through newspaper reports, now finds other people’s accounts of his parents are continually altering his view of his parents. Then strange secret letters start to arrive, exciting his imagination with the unanticipated notion that his life might contain the possibility of adventure. Nothing is what it once seemed. Suddenly a chance to take his own place in the world is offered, giving him courage and a newfound zest for discovery. “It was life as I would live it unless I went exploring that I dreaded.” Caught up in the mystery of who his parents really were, and anxious to leave behind the image of ‘the Stead boy’, at the age of twenty Devlin sails, carrying only a doctor’s bag, to a New York that is bursting with frenzied energy and about to become the capital city of the globe; where every day inventors file for new patents and three thousand new strangers enter the city, a city that already looks ancient although taller buildings are constructed constantly. There he will become protégé to Dr. Cook, who is restlessly preparing for his next expedition, be introduced into the society that makes such ventures possible, and eventually accompany Cook on his epic race to reach the Pole before the arch-rival Peary. This trip will plunge Devlin into worldwide controversy -- and decide his fate. Wayne Johnston has harnessed the scope, energy and inventiveness of the nineteenth century novel and encapsulated it in the haunting and eloquent voice of his hero. His descriptions of place, whether of the frozen Arctic wastes or the superabundant and teeming New York, have extraordinary physicality and conviction, recreating a time when the wide world seemed to be there for the taking. An extraordinary achievement that seamlessly weaves fact and fabrication, it continues the masterful reinvention of the historical novel Wayne Johnston began with The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.
Download or read book The Mystery of Right and Wrong written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER "An absolutely unforgettable novel."—Ian Williams A masterwork from one of the country’s most critically acclaimed and beloved writers that grapples with male violence, sexual abuse, and madness. Complusively readable and heartstopping. Wade Jackson, a young man from a Newfoundland outport, wants to be a writer. In the university library in St. John’s, where he goes every day to absorb the great books of the world, he encounters the fascinating, South African-born Rachel van Hout, and soon they are lovers. Rachel is the youngest of four van Hout daughters, each in their own way a wounded soul. The oldest, Gloria, has a string of broken marriages behind her. Carmen is addicted to every drug her Afrikaner dealer husband can lay his hands on. Bethany, the most sardonic of the sisters, is fighting a losing battle with anorexia. And then there is Rachel, who reads The Diary of Anne Frank obsessively, and diarizes her days in a secret language of her own invention, writing to the point of breakdown and beyond—an obsession that has deeper and more disturbing roots than Wade could ever have imagined. Confronting the central mystery of his character Rachel’s life—and his own—Wayne Johnston has created a brilliant and searing tour de force that pulls the reader toward a conclusion both inevitable and impossible to foresee.
Download or read book The Custodian of Paradise written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-01-08 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Wayne Johnston’s breakthrough novel based on the life of Newfoundland’s first premier, Joe Smallwood, was published internationally and earned him nominations for the highest fiction prizes in Canada. One of the most highly praised elements of the novel is the character Sheilagh Fielding, with whom Smallwood shares a lifelong love-hate relationship. The Custodian of Paradise is a riveting narrative with Fielding at its heart. Fielding—advancing on middle age, hobbled by disfigurement and personal demons—is headed for Loreburn, a deserted island off the south coast of Newfoundland. She has borne a lifetime of estrangement and heartbreak by setting herself apart from the rest of St. John’s society. By cultivating her isolation, she’s been able to write, both in her journals and for the Telegram. By skirting Prohibition laws, she’s also been able to dull the pain of her early years. Alone she remains—except for the mysterious stranger she calls her Provider. As Fielding revisits her articles, letters and journals, we are swept up in her tumultuous life’s journey and the mystery of this Provider’s identity. From the downtrodden streets of New York’s immigrant neighbourhoods to the sanatorium where she fights TB, from the remote workers’ shacks of the Bonavista rail line to the underbelly of wartime St. John’s, the Provider seems to have devoted himself to charting Fielding’s every move and to sending her maddeningly cryptic letters about his role in her life. Yet he has also protected her at times. While she fears that he may have followed her to Loreburn, she fears even more that he may not be able to find her there. With The Custodian of Paradise, Wayne Johnston continues his masterful exploration of life in pre-Confederation Newfoundland, and of the powerful forces that give rise to great character—individualism, circumstance, and secrecy; memory, loss, and regret.
Download or read book The Son of a Certain Woman written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the Giller Prize and a national bestseller from one of Canada's most acclaimed, beloved storytellers: The Son of a Certain Woman is Wayne Johnston's funniest, sexiest novel yet, controversial in its issues, wise, generous and then some in its depiction of humanity. Percy Joyce, born in St. John's, Newfoundland, in the 50s is an outsider from childhood, set apart by a congenital disfigurement. Taunted and bullied, he is also isolated by his intelligence and wit, and his unique circumstances. Soon on the cusp of teenagehood, Percy is filled with yearning, wild with hormones, and longing for what he can't have—wanting to be let in...and let out. At the top of his wish list is his disturbingly alluring mother, Penelope, whose sex appeal fairly leaps off the page. Everyone in St. John's lusts after her—including her sister-in-law, Medina; their paying boarder, the local chemistry teacher, Pops MacDougal; and...Percy. The Son of a Certain Woman brilliantly mixes sorrow and laughter as it builds toward an unforgettable ending. Will Pops marry Penelope? Will Penelope and Medina be found out? Will Percy be lured into the Church? It is a reminder of the pain of being an outsider; of the sustaining power of love and the destructive power of hate; and of the human will to triumph.
Download or read book Roses are Difficult Here written by William Ormond Mitchell and published by M&S. This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a novel of small-town life. The town where roses are difficult is Shelby, in the Alberta foothills, and the time is the 1950s. Matt Stanley, the editor of the local paper, relishes the range of people he meets, from Willie MacCrimmon, the local shoemaker and demon curler, to the oldest resident, Daddy Sherry, all the way to the disreputable Rory Napoleon and his wife, Mame, who once conceived at the top of a ferris wheel “because there was nothing else to do.” But when a sociologist arrives to study the town, Matt takes her under his wing, which produces unexpected results. From scenes of high comedy (as when Santa comes to Shelby, or when Rory Napoleon’s goats invade the town) to gentle sadness, this 1990 novel shows W.O Mitchell at his traditional best.
Download or read book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil written by John Berendt and published by Random House. This book was released on 1994-01-13 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.
Download or read book The Old Lost Land of Newfoundland written by Wayne Johnston and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2008 Wayne Johnston became the second prominent Canadian writer to enlighten and entertain audiences as a speaker in the Canadian Literature Centre's Henry Kreisel Lecture Series. He spoke to an enthusiastic audience at the University of Alberta about the myths and realities surrounding his native Newfoundland. A master storyteller, Johnston peppered the lecture with impromptu asides, delighting his listeners with true tales and well-spun yarns.
Download or read book Under an Outlaw Moon written by Dietrich Kalteis and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet Depression-era newlyweds Bennie and Stella. He’s reckless, she’s naive. Longing for freedom from tough times, they rob a bank, setting off a series of events that quickly spin out of their control Under an Outlaw Moon is based on the true story of Depression-era bank robbers Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson. She’s a teenage outsider longing to fit in. He’s a few years older and he’s trouble. They meet at a local skating rink and the sparks fly. They marry and Stella dreams of a nice house with a swing out back, while Bennie figures out how to get enough money to make it happen. Setting his sights on the good life, he decides to rob a bank. Talking Stella into it, he lays out his plan and teaches her to shoot. The newlyweds celebrate her 16th birthday by robbing a local bank. They pull it off, but the score is small, and Bennie realizes the money won’t last long, so he plans a bigger robbery. What lays ahead is more than either of them bargained for. After J. Edgar Hoover finds out they crossed state lines, he declares them public enemies number one and two — wanted dead or alive. So much for the good life. The manhunt is on, and there’s little room for them to run.
Download or read book The Time of Their Lives written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Description: British Holiday Estates film showing the story of a holiday in Prestatyn Holiday Camp on the coast of North Wales. The film is narrated by Mary and Jim, a couple looking for a new holiday experience, and they describe the entertainment, accommodation, food, sports and sights as the viewer follows them through their holiday.
Download or read book First Snow Last Light written by Wayne Johnston and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the prizewinning and bestselling The Colony of Unrequited Dreams comes an epic family mystery with a powerful, surprise ending, and featuring the return of the ever-fascinating, always memorable Sheilagh Fielding. In the chill hush that precedes the first storm of the winter of 1936, 14-year-old Ned Vatcher comes home from school to find the house locked, the family car missing, and his parents gone without a trace. From that point on, his life is driven by the need to find out what happened to the Vanished Vatchers. His father, Edgar, born to a poor family of fishermen, had risen to become the right-hand man to the colony's prime minister, then suffered an unexpected fall from grace. Were he and his wife murdered? Was it suicide? Had they run away? If so, why had they left their only child behind? Ned soon finds himself enmeshed in another family, that of his missing father and the poverty from which the man somehow escaped. His grandparents, Nan and Reg, his Uncle Cyril and others, are themselves haunted by the inexplicable disappearance of a third Vatcher, a young man who was lost at sea on a calm and sunny day years earlier. As Ned becomes Newfoundland's first media mogul and builds an empire to insulate him from loss, two other people loom large in his life: a Jesuit priest named Father Duggan, and Sheilagh Fielding, a boozy giantess who, while wandering the city streets at night, composes satiric columns that scandalize the rich and powerful. In Ned, Fielding sees a surrogate for her two lost children, while Ned believes the enigmatic Fielding to be his soulmate. The novel builds to a spectacular resolution of the mystery of all the Vanished Vatchers, with these larger-than-life, mythic characters embroiled in events that leave us contemplating not only their tragedies and triumphs, but the forces that compel us all to act in ways that surprise and sometimes terrify us.
Download or read book An Orange from Portugal written by Anne Simpson and published by Fredericton, N.B. : Goose Lane Editions. This book was released on 2003 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's often said that the main export of the Maritimes is Maritimers, and the same is true of Newfoundland. "Going down the road" is a way of life, but so is coming home for Christmas. It is tradition marked by happiness, fun, and sometimes less comfortable emotions. Given the regional penchant for yarn spinning, this common experience yields an abundance of stories. In An Orange from Portugal, editor Anne Simpson takes liberties with the concept of "story" to produce a book bursting with Christmas flavour. Many of her choices are fiction, others are memoirs, tall tales, poems, or essays, and still others defy classification. Some authors are nationally and even internationally famous, some are well known in the region, and others are published here for the first time. Spanning more than a century of seasonal writing, the collection includes a description of killing a pig aboard the sailing ship Argonauta for Christmas dinner; Hugh MacLennan"s Halifax waif who wants nothing more than for Santa to bring him a real orange, an orange from Portugal; a story by Alden Nowlan and another by Harry Bruce giving very different versions of what the animals in the barn do on Christmas Eve; a story about Jewish children hanging up their stockings; and very new work by young writers Lisa Moore and Michael Crummey. Beautiful poems by Lynn Davies, Milton Acorn and others leaven the collection for readers of all persuasions. Other authors include: Wayne Johnston, Mary Pratt, David Adams Richards, Carol Bruneau, Wilfred Grenfeld, L.M. Montgomery, Paul Bowdring, Grace Ladd, Herb Curtis, Joan Clark, Ernest Buckler, Rhoda Graser, Bert Batstone, Elisabeth Harvor, David Weale, Charles G.D. Roberts, Ronald F. Hawkins, Mark Jarman, Elsie Charles Basque, Richard Cumyn, Herménégilde Chiasson, Stan Dragland, Alistair MacLeod, and Bernice Morgan. An Orange from Portugal is a Christmas feast, with the scent of turkey and the sound of laughter wafting from the kitchen, and a flurry of snow outside the window.
