Morley Callaghan meet your literary counterpart. You guys wanna go box or something?

I have been dabbling around writing a novel set in Nova Scotia. My reading week sojourn this year was revelatory. I love the Maritimes. I love the Nautical slant, the great "Gus Pike" accents, the link to Canadian history, the Colonial buildings and the strong tie to the UK.
Lately, I have been reading a lot of Maritime fiction and history. The Atlantic is steeped in naval history. I especially like how Nova Scotia pops up in O'Brian now and then ( namely, The Fortune of War).


Some memorable Atlantic historical reads of late include:

Nova Scotia shaped by the Sea by Lesley Choyce This is told in episodic format and focuses on small, slight seemingly insignificant details that lend a social peek into life of the age.

In the same vein, Lesley Choyce focuses once more on a microscopic view that lends to the over all historical significance with An Avalanche of Ocean: the Life and times of a Nova Scotian immigrant. Choyce is not the best writer, but he does use his knowledge to the best of his ability often his minimalist prose allows the reader to further investigate the perimeters of their own imagination. In essence, he outlines the picture and you have to colour it in.


If you wanted to be a little more specific as to the telling of your maritime history, you may choose a book that focuses on one city or region. In this realm, I enjoyed Louisbourg Portraits by Christopher Moore ( not the Same Christopher Moore who wrote Lamb and Fluke, by the way ). This book casts a light on the budding society of the maritimes in an 18th Century Garrison town. Yes, reading about the sweeping epic that is the Napoleonic times is one thing, but seeing how it did ( and didn't, respectively ) affect the lives of the gentle inhabitants is quite another. It lent many an imaginative spree.

I also read Halifax: Warden of the North by Thomas Raddall. This book encapsulates the burgeoning settlement of Halifax in the 16th Century and creeps up to Post World War II. Raddall, luckily, lends a lot of his narrative to the navy. It was the chapters on the great age of sail and how the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 was an essential part in the fashioning of this seaside town that I particularly enjoyed.



On the fictional side, may I gushingly recommend my fervour for Canadian story-teller extraordinaire, Alistair Macleod. Most of Macleod's fiction and short stories are set in Cape Breton. Fine with me!! He paints it so picturesquely and nostalgiacally. You can see the candlelight streaming from windows by the bay and smell the tangy salt of the ocean . I love this man and I hope he writes forever. I ran into him once in Windsor, Ontario ( where he was once writer-in-residence ) after my first, high school reading of No Great Mischief. This, Macleod's best-selling book intertwines snippets of the Scottish tradition with the descendents of a clan who have settled in Cape Breton. It is lovely and heart-breaking all at once. Highly recommended ( especially on my recent re-read) as one of the greatest Canadian novels of the past decade.

Macleod's short story compilation Island combines his best known compilation The Lost Salt Gift of Blood with all of his other published short fiction. Well worth the 18 bucks or whatever you find it for on Amazon.


The Birth House by Ami McKay has been a smash hit here in Canada. And good for her, she is the nicest duck alive . She stopped by WBB the other day and I found her humble and articulate. She is one of our nation's up and comers. Yes, the book reads a little like the Red Tent of the Canadian east but her prose is lovely. I am always enthralled by those so steeped in tradition they are unwilling to accept the scientific and medical break-throughs of the modern age. In this sense, Mckay's novel reminded of Neil MacNeil's struggle in Catherine Marshall's Christy ( one of my favourite books ). Dr. MacNeil cannot get his patients to shed their inhibitions of anything other than their stubborn ( and often superstitious ) Scottish remedies.
Set in rural Nova Scotia around the WWII era, this was a fresh escape from everything nautical.


I also read Each Man's Son by Morley Callagh.....ooops! I mean Hugh MacLennan. You see, the bloody book was so Callaghan-ish, I could not tell them apart. Who am I reading again? I really enjoyed this Callagh-Lennan book ( my new take on the glued together names like Brangelina..... although I am sure one of the two of them would come and kill me ). This is the well-played tragedy of Dr. Ainsley, a Scottish doctor returning to his native Cape Breton ( see Birth House and Christy ) after a stint as a surgeon in the States to bring healing and hope to a small coal-mining community. Sort of like Everwood. Well, atleast the doctor-small town part.

We are told early on that the friction between Ainsley and his beautiful wife, Margaret, is the result of a hysterectomy he performed on her the year before. A life saving operation, it has prevented the possibility of children. Lonely, and aching for a son, Ainsley becomes the surrogate father to Alan MacNeil, a local boy whose mother works overtime piecing rugs while his father fights for money in metropolitan Halifax. ( Any one thinking More Joy in Heaven by Morley Callaghan, with All the Years of her Life thrown in?!). This book has a harrowing and startling conclusion reminsencent of, guess who, Morley Callaghan. Also, the protestant, puritancial work-ethic relayed works like Callaghan's own catholic-conviction prose. I wish these two weren't dead, they should get together for tea. I want to be a fly on the wall at that conversation.


I also read MacLennan's most famous work Barometer Rising. Another book I had read in high school but wanted to try again. It takes place in the span of a week ( take that, Dan Brown ! ) and focuses on a relationship effected first by the Great War and then by the catastrophic Halifax Explosion. It is a little icky that the love story is between two cousins. It was all well and good in the 19th Century ( see Ashley and Melanie in GWTW) but I thought we had moved on. Oh well, small Maritimer town, it's bound to happen. Very entertaining. Very....how do you say it....oh right! Very Callaghanish.

Two Solitudes was also a pragmatic book worthy of ..... ( okay that's just getting old ) Callagh-Lennan delves into generational territory here and works well with the conflicting worlds of the Maritimes and the French Canadian world of Quebec. Another corker! Lots of conscience delving puritanical stuff. Go Scottish immigrants in the Atlantic provinces.

"Farewell to Nova Scotia you sea-bound coast...will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me ?"

In the world of Kid's lit I love Crispin: Cross of Lead by Avi ( what the hell is this guy's name ?) Crispin is an orphaned boy who romps around England with a gigantic minstrel performer, aptly named Bear, during the Medieval times. The birth of protestantism amidst the strict Catholic regime of the day is well mapped out. Cannot wait for the sequel.


Stay with Me by Garret Freymann-Weyr concentrates on Leila's turmoil during the aftermath of her sister's suicide. A dark, melancholy read, it occasionally allows snippets of sun to peek through especially in the development of new relationships. Some romantic, some friendship, all plausible and interesting.