The Lights of Lancaster: Letters to Rome [Illustrated] [Paperback]

J. Euclide Caza (Author), A. Margaret Caza (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996 | ISBN-10: 0969875274 | ISBN-13: 978-0969875277 | Edition: illustrated edition

A journal which happens to be a social history of the 1950s in Huntingdon, Quebec. What makes this especially interesting is that it is written by a dental surgeon who has had a stroke, and who types his "letters" with one finger.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Memoirs are written to express a point of view for the public. Journals are written for the writer, not necessarily for the public. At least, that is the case with Euclide. After he wrote each page, he dropped it in the wastepaper basket, then began anew the next day. But since the pages were written in the form of letters to his brother, Rom, Euclide's wife, Rose, retrieved them each night to give to Rom. The letters constitute a personal form of local Quebec history. A French-Canadian's thoughts and our thankfulness that they survive. AUTHCOMMENTS [A. Margaret Caza]: For my part, I tend to agree with Art Spikol, columnist for Writer's Digest, who said, "I also like the dead, whose words continue to rekindle the soul every time they're read." (March 1994) ... Euclide longed to leave something important to his children so that they would know his intense appreciation of life, and savour all the dear moments of their own lives - yet he did not consider that he had done so. His words touched me, kindling a determination to write them in my own language, and to deliver through them the essence of Euclide's message - of simple appreciation of the world around us all.

From the Back Cover

Journal of a Stroke Victim. "What a mysterious world, that of the stroke victim. We can only try to imagine it.... This is a compelling look into the private whims, furies and fantasies of a man imprisoned, with full cerebral function, in a body that has become unmanageable." (From the Introduction) He was encouraged by his brother O.E., a surgeon, to keep a journal, which took the form of letters to his brother Rom. Two decades after Euclide's death, Margaret, wife of Rom's son Renaud, became intrigued by the tattered onionskin sheets. With considerable help from her husband, Renaud, she translated the letters into English. Now, nearly two decades later, she has annotated them, to better acquaint readers with the setting of Euclide's story.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Shoreline; illustrated edition edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0969875274
• ISBN-13: 978-0969875277
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)