From one of Canada's most acclaimed short story writers, ten stories set amidst the stark beauty of Cape Breton.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
These 11 haunting short fictions are shaped by the rugged terrain and rough seas of Cape Breton Island in southeastern Canada. MacLeod, a notable Canadian writer making his American debut here, is a superb storyteller who captures the moodiness of his native Nova Scotia in tales of fishermen, farmers and lighthouse keepers. Like the variable geography and climate of Cape Breton, the stories are raw and brutal, sweet and tender. In "The Boat," an academic recalls the life and death of his stubborn father, a crusty old lobsterman with a passion for literature"useless books" to his wife. Despite aspirations of university, the son pledged to "remain with him his father as long as he lived and we would fish the sea together." After the father's drowning, the son left Cape Breton and his widowed mother to pursue a degree. Years later, he observed: "It is not an easy thing to know that your mother looks upon the sea with love and on you with bitterness because the one has been so constant and the other so untrue." Set in a remote and isolated environment, the regional work speaks of great loves (between man and woman, father and son, boy and dog) and tragic losses that will move readers in every corner of the world.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This collection of 11 stories, set for the most part in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, uses detailed description of the stark, beautiful landscape and the lives of fishermen, farmers, miners, and lighthouse keepers to convey a powerful range of feelings. A Canadian writer not well known in the United States, MacLeod draws on childhood memories and on folktales of Ireland and Scotland, often writing in the first person and using Gaelic quotations to enhance the melancholy moods. A special blending of myth and reality here preserves impressions from a time and place that will never exist again. A worthy addition to any fiction collection. Dean Willms, Vail P.L., Col.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rock your world,
By ftrack2715@aol.com (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood: New and Selected Stories (Paperback)
The raw emotional power I encountered within these stories sprang the off page like a fist, fracturing my complacency over and over. Nothing but Hemingway compares to Macleod's writing style.Uncomfortable truths lie here, expressed with such skill and economy that they elude memory, leaving the uneasy feeling that one has looked too deeply into a troubled soul and seen more than one should; it's hard to believe that the events described didn't happen, if not to the author, at least someone known to him.I believe there is no other writer in the English language with this mastery of short fiction.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Neglected Masterpiece,
By Emmett Miller (Burton, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood: New and Selected Stories (Paperback)
This is a modern masterpiece, much neglected even in Canada. MacLeod's writing is full of the "blas" (gaelic for "taste") that is or was Cape Breton. These stories are contemporary and ancient. Though they deal with modern issues and people, you can't help feeling these stories are very old. They reveal things unearthly and magical without ever taking their feet off the ground or closing their eyes. And there is a sad sense of loss that everyone close to things old and beautiful must feel in our modern culture.
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