Vous voulez voir cette page en fran�ais ? Cliquez ici.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

4 used & new from CDN$ 9.89

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

See larger image

Share your own customer images

Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Sylvanus Now (Mass Market Paperback)

by Donna Morrissey (Author)

4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

List Price:	CDN$ 10.99
Price:	CDN$ 9.89 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
You Save:	CDN$ 1.10 (10%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

3 used from CDN$ 26.09

Frequently Bought Together

Total List Price: CDN$ 50.99
Price For All Three: CDN$ 39.09

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Sylvanus Now by Donna Morrissey
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
What They Wanted by Donna Morrissey
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
Downhill Chance by Donna Morrissey
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

What They Wanted

by Donna Morrissey

4.0 out of 5 stars (4) CDN$ 13.14

Kit's Law

by Donna Morrissey

4.5 out of 5 stars (13) CDN$ 16.06

Downhill Chance

by Donna Morrissey

4.3 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 16.06

Latitudes of Melt

by Joan Clark

5.0 out of 5 stars (1) CDN$ 15.33

The Lace Reader: A Novel

by Brunonia Barry

4.5 out of 5 stars (4) CDN$ 13.86

› Explore similar items

Product Details

Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Penguin Canada (APB); 1 edition (Jan 30 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143053574
ISBN-13: 978-0143053576

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #39,760 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon.ca

Sylvanus Now, the hero of Donna Morrissey's moving third novel, is a man with modest ambitions--he wants to fish in the old way, like his father before him, and he wants to marry Adelaide, the beautiful girl he spied once at a dance in Ragged Rock. Newfoundland's fishery, however, is on the verge of catastrophic change, and Adelaide proves more of an enigma than the rugged, black-browed Sylvanus imagines. Set in the early 1950s, against the backdrop of the collapse of the salt-fish industry, Sylvanus Now combines a passionate critique of government short-sightedness with a tender love story about two people who probably shouldn't have married but did.

Morrissey's lushly written narrative, steeped in outport dialect ("Cripes, why don't you ask Am for a spot on his liner? You're getting like father, bandied at the knees from straddling a boat"), alternates between Sylvanus's and Adelaide's points of view. While Sylvanus clings to his traditional ways with a reckless tenacity, Addie is a fireball of conflicting emotions, forever spewing invective or else brooding in silence. Forced to drop out of school by her perennially pregnant mother, she rails against fishing ("she prayed that each fish caught would be the last in the sea") and babies ("their grubby little hands forever snatching, picking and scratching"). Yet, before long, she finds herself married to her fisherman suitor and expecting their first child--a recipe for disaster if ever there was one. Sylvanus Now owes much to the tradition of naturalistic working-class fiction that produced Frank Parker Day's Rockbound--not surprising when one recalls that Morrissey championed Day's novel during the 2005 Canada Reads debate on CBC Radio. Like Rockbound, this quietly unassuming historical novel celebrates old-fashioned values like perseverance, and is bound to bring a tear to the eye. --Lisa Alward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Like Kit's Law (2001) and Downhill Chance (2003), Morrissey's third novel set in mid-twentieth-century Newfoundland examines the interpersonal dynamics that link the inhabitants of an insular fishing village. This time the pressures on the fishermen and their wives come from both within (insularity suffocates even as it nurtures) and without, as modern fishing methods threaten the livelihood of the locals. Sylvanus Now is determined to fish the way his ancestors did, but his wife, Adelaide, yearns for escape: from a stultifying future of tending babies and working "on the flakes," where women salt-dry the freshly caught fish. Morrissey meticulously documents the bitterness that grows in both husband and wife as their very different dreams are slowly crushed. And yet, in the midst of seething emotions and steadily building disappointment, a sustaining love begins to grow between the beleaguered pair. Morrissey generates a remarkable intensity of emotion here, and if the novel often seems oppressively sad, it is buoyed by the crispness of detail and the author's ability to vivify the slow process through which an inner life is transformed. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Product Description

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

	74% buy the item featured on this page: Sylvanus Now 4.8 out of 5 stars (5) CDN$ 9.89
	14% buy Kit's Law 4.5 out of 5 stars (13) CDN$ 16.06
	5% buy Downhill Chance 4.3 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 16.06
	4% buy What They Wanted 4.0 out of 5 stars (4) CDN$ 13.14

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, Greater and Greatest, Jun 5 2005

By	Beverley Mallette (Vancouver Island) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sylvanus Now (Paperback)

Ms. Morrissey won me over with Kit's Law. Downhill Chance made her writing a part of my thoughts and Sylvanus Now made her writing part of my heart.
Ms. Morrissey's ability to capture the Newfoundland dialect is absolutely incredible and the words in-between are nothing short of genuis.
I felt, at times, I was seeing the marrow of the bones of Addie and Syllie, and Eva and Suze. I could see their weather-beaten faces, smell the odour of fish and toil, taste the salt. I could feel the sting of the salty fish-water in the lines of my own hands when Addie and Suze were turning the cod and I shivered with the dampness and coldness of mother ocean when Sylvanus jigged for cod.
I have long been a reader of the great literature that is coming out of Newfoundland. This is that literature at it's very best.
This book should be a mandatory read for high-schoolers. A history book that you can actually feel.
Doesn't get any better than this!
Thank you Donna Morrissey. Keep writing -- faster.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart-warming, Oct 19 2005

By	Andrea Sentesy (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sylvanus Now (Paperback)

This is a wonderful novel. When I received this book as a gift, my first impression was that it was not a book I would be absorbed by, but then I was stuck in bed with the flu for a few days and thought I'd give it a chance. After the first few chapters I just couldn't put it down. Sylvanus and Adelaide's relationship is so intense and thought-provoking that I found myself thinking of them throughout the day. Their dedication to one another, throughout their personal and political struggles and hardships is heart-warming, and definitely eye-opening compared to the modern-turn dating and relationships have taken.

If I can't sell you on the love-story, this novel is also worth reading, as it discloses the short-sightedness of the government during the crisis of the fishing industry on Canada's East Coast during the 1950's. It reveals a personal view of how long-standing tradition and families were affected by the government's decisions.

One word of warning: it may take a few pages/chapters to get used to the East Coast dialect the narration is written in, but in the end you will be thankful for it, as it adds to the authenticity of the story.

Please let Sylvanus and Adelaide into your lives... they will sweep you away!

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sylvanus Now, Oct 10 2008

By	Pauline - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Sylvanus Now" takes place in the 1950s on Canada's Atlantic coast. Sylvanus Now is a Newfoundland fisherman and all he wants is a new suit, so he can catch himself a wife.

Adelaide is smart and beautiful with ice blue eyes. She excels in school, but her mother takes her out of school to work the fish flakes which Adelaide absolutely abhors. Due to lack of money to care for all the children Adelaide's mother has born Adelaide is forced to help provide for and care for them.

Sylvanus becomes infatuated with Adelaide and decides to make her his wife. She is cool and aloof towards Sylvanus, but after a melt down at home she is more than willing to marry Sylvanus especially since he promises her that she would not have to have anything to do with the fishing industry and she could have a home to herself.

Times have never been easy for Canada's Atlantic fishermen and with the freezer factories and other huge boats over fishing the waters and scraping the ocean's floors lifeless there is less fish for Sylvanus to catch on his own. Not only is the ocean becoming lifeless, but Adelaide and Sylvanus' babies keep dieing at birth.

The government has a plan to relocate the Newfoundlanders since the fish industry is decimated, forcing Sylvanus and Adelaide to make a decision to stay and fight for their lifestyle or to relocate. The decision they make makes Sylvanus a lesser god, but protects what gave their life meaning.

"Sylvanus Now" is beautifully written, I was able to picture the Atlantic Ocean and Sylvanus fishing on it and the big freezer factories decimating our Canadian waters. Definitely a great read for those interested in what over fishing has done to our oceans and for anyone yearning to know more about Atlantic Canada.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 5 customer reviews...

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Another brilliant book from Donna Morrissey
If I were the ranking type, I would have ranked Donna Morrissey's
third book Sylvanus Now as her best, but I'm not, so I will begin my
review by saying that it is... Read more

Published on Sep 6 2005 by Ismet Ugursal

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting, masterful and totally engaging
I agree with Beverly, this is a wonderful work. Friends from NL introduced us to Donna Morrisey and we picked this up as soon as we saw her name on the cover. Read more

Published on Sep 1 2005 by Jeanette Ireland