Product Description
When their farm gets expropriated to make way for the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant, Alexander McNab and his family move to Saint John. Without the magic of the Bay of Fundy, without the bright companionship of his little sister, Alex grows up a lonely, insecure failure. At 30, he’s had enough; to make a clean break, he moves to Halifax. There, he is hired as a counsellor at New Dawn, a rehabilitation workshop, even though he has no professional qualifications. Alex soon becomes part of the New Dawn family, and the distinction between the helper and the helped blurs. The key may be that Alex takes for granted the wholeness in each of these damaged adults. Blind Jeff, 17, knows everything about cars, so Alex takes him out to the parking lot and teaches him to drive. In turn, Alex is adopted by Cornwallis Itwaru, a descendent of Jamaican Maroons plagued by encroaching Alzheimer’s, who firmly adjusts Alex’s fuzzy thinking. Alex sees right away that Gloria Vincent, who suffers from schizophrenia, has adopted a sloppy dress and ugly glasses as camouflage for her intelligence and beauty, and his discovery does not wholly displease her. Unfortunately, New Dawn goes broke, but by the time the landlord padlocks the doors, Alex has learned that living life fully doesn’t depend on external circumstances.
From the Inside Flap
Driven from the Fundy shore into Saint John by the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant expropriations, Alex McNab grows up a lonely, insecure failure. At thirty, to make a clean break, he takes a job at New Dawn, a Halifax rehabilitation workshop. At New Dawn, the distinction between the helper and the helped blurs. Jeff, seventeen and blind, knows all about cars, so Alex teaches him to drive. In turn, Alex has his fuzzy thinking firmly adjusted by a descendant of Jamaican Maroons plagued by encroaching Alzheimer’s. Alex sees right away that Gloria Vincent has adopted a sloppy dress and ugly glasses to hide her intelligence and beauty, and they cautiously fall in love. Alex can’t prevent New Dawn from going broke any more than he can shrug off the shadow of death that follows him. But he can control the force of life. By the end of the summer, his safe, depressing existence has become a full, exhilarating, and at times frightening adventure.
