The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family's Past [Paperback]

David Macfarlane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2001

Emulating the circuitous tales told by his mother's relatives, the Goodyears of Newfoundland, David Macfarlane has crafted a masterpiece of history and memory that will remain indelibly in the minds of its readers. Macfarlane weaves the major events of Newfoundland's twentieth century—the ravages of tuberculosis; the great seal-hunt disaster; the bitter debate over whether to become part of Canada; and above all, the First World War—into a saga of the ill-starred yet heroic fortunes of his family, who were rarely in control of events but often at the center of them. With deep affection, he brings to life a multigenerational cast of characters who are as colorful as only Newfoundlanders can be—heroes and charlatans, pirates and dreamers, whose humanity manages to illuminate and enrich our own.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[An] uncommonly wise and moving book." --Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

"An altogether remarkable, frequently funny, genuinely moving, and utterly original book." --Jan Morris

"The Danger Tree is absolutely riveting: an extraordinary mixture of history, memory, fiction, and technique that succeeds at every level. I was touched, I was exhilarated, and I was thrilled to read a book that has risen to the challenge of recording...the past in all our hearts." --Michael Ignatieff

"I've just discovered The Danger Tree and am stunned. It is so good." --Alice Munro

About the Author

Holding a B.A. from the University of Toronto, David Macfarlane writes a regular weekly column for Canada’s Globe and Mail, for which he won a National Newspaper Award in 1997. He is also the author of one novel, Summer Gone, which won the 1999 Chapters first novel award and was a finalist for the prestigious "Giller Prize". It is available in paperback from Anchor Books. He has also published several short stories and poems. In addition to six gold National Magazine Awards, he has won an "Author’s Award for Magazine Writing"—making him the recipient of more Canadian National Magazine Awards than any other writer. Macfarlane lives with his wife and two children in Toronto, and is at work on a book about the marble quarries of Carrara, Italy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 307 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802776167
• ISBN-13: 978-0802776167
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #826,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its Subtitle Says It All, June 4, 2001

By 

Peter D. Kinder (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family's Past (Paperback)

Pitifully few Americans are even aware of Canada's participation in World War I. Fewer still know Canada suffered horrible casualties which it honors on Rememberance Day, a deeply felt, painfully observed day of mourning.

David MacFarlane's father was the only one of six brothers to survive World War I. Unlike them, he didn't go to France. One of his two sisters served as a nurse there, too.

The Danger Tree traces the lives of these siblings from Newfoundland and the effects of the war on the survivors and the survivors' descendants. It is in part a memoir and in part a carefully researched work of journalism by a gifted "light" columnist for The Globe and Mail in Toronto.

The ordinary deaths of these ordinary young men from a hard-working Scots family surviving in a very tough environment have found a memorial in MacFarlane's writing. But of greater significance is MacFarlane's insistance that the effects of their deaths, the effects of the First War, live today.

It occurs to me that The Danger Tree is a book one should read immediately after Robert Graves' Goodby to All That. For MacFarlane adds dimensions of time and distance to the soldier's pain. MacFarlane is a fine writer, but Graves was a great one. Still, the two books sit comfortably together on my shelves.

A brilliant book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing read, August 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family's Past (Paperback)

This is an amazing book: history, biography, auto-biograhy, philosphy all combined into a powerful tale of family character (and characters)that stays with you. In essence, a simple reflection on long past lives from a little corner of the world, Newfoundland, all wound up in the Great War, it becomes a haunting tour-de-force of the power of great events on everyday people.

The chapter "Fire" is in itself a small masterpiece and one I find reading again and again even now two years after the first read.

I picked this book up by sheer accident in a small bookstore in Banff and have been thankful for my good fortune of discovering this gem.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars so much more than a history book, or a memoir, May 5, 2008

By 

Pookie "mstfmsgn" (VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family's Past (Paperback)

I don't have a lot of time to write reviews, and I don't often write them, but I enjoyed this book so thoroughly that I'm sad to be finished reading it. It's one of the best memoirs I've ever read, though it's not really a memoir. One of the best family history books I've ever read, and yet it isn't that either. It is hands-down my favorite book about Newfoundland that I've read, though there are many more I want to read. Macfarlane is a masterful writer, and his work is filled with insight, thoughtfulness about the past, dead ancestors, and what they mean to those of us still living, even if we'd never met them. Though I'm wary of reviews that say things like this, he really does, quite improbably, tell a compelling story of Newfoundland itself through the story of his ancestors. The book somehow never descends into the maudlin or sentimental; it's quite a clear-eyed view of the meaning of World War I for Newfoundland and for the Goodyear family. The ending was striking--I'll probably never forget the image he painted on the last page. Loved it from start to finish.