From Amazon
In
Atlantica: Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland, Lesley Choyce, the godfather of eastern Canadian literature, has gathered a sample of recent short story writing from the region, beginning with Alistair MacLeod's "Clearances" and ending with Sheldon Currie's "The Glace Bay Miner's Museum," a novel-length version of which inspired the movie
Margaret's Museum. However, between these two stellar bookends, the selection is rather uneven. Herb Curtis's "The Party," Budge Wilson's "Mr. Manuel Jenkins," and Choyce's own "Dance the Rocks Ashore" are all memorable tales, but the editor's spirited introduction makes for more interesting reading than some of the other choices. As the reader lays down this book, the individual voices tend to blur into an endless vista of interminable winters, corrupt priests, drunk-driving accidents, and other unpleasant, work-related misadventures. Authorial identity is overridden by an insistence on region and experience that at times borders on caricature. One wishes the editor had opted for more than basic storytelling, assuming that such options are available. However, be that as it may,
Atlantica still provides an interesting snapshot of writing and life out east.
--Robyn Gillam
Book Description
The world has taken notice. From Alistair MacLeod’s recent IMPAC literary award, through movies based on the work of David Adams Richards and Sheldon Currie, to the epic television series based on the work of Bernice Morgan, the international community has soundly acknowledged the critical and commercial success of Atlantic writers. Atlantica is the first major anthology of Atlantic fiction since Best Maritime Short Stories was published in 1988 and showcases stories by some of Canada’s most exciting authors — established, newly popular, and emerging. Given the regional penchant for storytelling, it’s not surprising that the Maritimes and Newfoundland produce a continuous stream of spellbinding writers. Among the stories in Atlantica are Anne Simpson’s Journey Prize-winning “Dreaming Snow,” Carol Bruneau’s “The Tarot Reader,” “Batter My Heart” by Lynn Coady, Bernice Morgan’s “Poems in a Cold Climate” “The Train Family” by Joan Clark, “Missing Notes” by David Helwig, “The Party” by Herb Curtis and “Clearances” by Alistair MacLeod. Readers from “away” will recognize Sheldon Currie’s hilariously gothic tale “The Glace Bay Miner’s Museum” as the basis of Helena Bonham Carter’s acclaimed movie Margaret’s Museum. Some stories have been excerpted from novels, including David Adams Richards’s The Bay of Love and Sorrows, Wayne Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, John Steffler’s The Afterlife of George Cartwright, and Donna Morrissey’s Kit’s Law. Remarkably diverse in age, style, and cultural identity, the writers in this anthology raise a common voice that defines Atlantic Canada. Each with an individual approach to language and writing, they offer a collective view of the east, conscious of tradition but not confined by it. By turns funny, poignant and pensive, the stories in Atlantica firmly place eastern Canadian culture on the world map of literature.
