From Amazon
This All Happened details in diary form a lively Newfoundland world of icebergs and baymen and fog on granite, but it's also a Newfoundland of bohemian film crews and jealous jet-setters and Joycean barflies. Our narrator, a writer named Gabriel English, wonders if his partner Lydia Murphy is sleeping around, and wonders if they will have a baby. He also wonders who's breaking into their houses and purloining food while leaving behind odd items like the pair of men's underwear in her dryer. The mysterious trespasser eventually sets up his own television in Lydia's house when she's away so he can watch soaps while he does his laundry, a slip leading to his demise.
There's an entry in the novel for each day of a year on the Rock, but This All Happened is not just 365 entries; its landscape and romance and mysteries and oddball characters morph into much more than a sum of the book's intimate parts. Gabriel's days are bound up with friends and lovers, driven by a hungry sociability that's captured in his entry for June 21, which describes walking into the Ship Inn pub by yourself:
You feel like a dog and you want company. Well, you open up that door and you steel yourself. It's got to be all one motion, no hesitation. Open the door and stride in, but a slow stride, maximum exposure. And you make your way to the bar. And all the way there you keep your eyes on the bottles and the mirrors and you're hoping there's someone in there who knows you. You hope you don't make it to the bar before someone waves you over, grasps your arm, says, Hey, how's it going? Yes sir, that walk to the bar is the loneliest walk in the world.
This All Happened was chosen for Newfoundland's inaugural Winterset Award, and it's been widely praised by writers and critics before and since. If you have a chance, go hear Michael Winter read from his work in a voice that charms birds out of the trees (bless his pointed little head).
--Mark Anthony Jarman
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
The prose is so pure and true. Moment reduced to their essence. Damn, I love the way this guy writes. --
Toronto StarThere is charm, wit, and poetry on every page of This All Happened. Readers everywhere should be reading Michael Winter. --
Wayne Johnston
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
