About
the Author
David Macfarlane was born in Hamilton in 1952. He is
the author of an acclaimed family memoir of Newfoundland,
The Danger Tree, which won the Canadian Authors'
Association Award for Non-Fiction in 1992. He began
his career as a writer and editor with Weekend Magazine
and has since been published in Saturday Night,
Maclean's, Toronto Life and Books in
Canada, among others. the recipient of eleven National
Magazine Awards and a Sovereign Award for Magazine Journalism,
David Macfarlane is now a national columnist for The
Globe and Mail. He lives in Toronto with his wife
and two children. Summer Gone is his first novel
and was shortlisted for the 1999 Giller Prize. Summer
Gone was published in the New Face of Fiction program
in 1999.
<TOP>
Books by
this author
The
Danger Tree (Vintage
Canada, 2000)
Summer Gone (Vintage
Canada, 2000)
Summer Gone (Knopf Canada, 1999)
<TOP>
Literary
Awards
- Co-winner
of the 2000 Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award
(Summer Gone)
- Shortlisted
for the 1999 Giller Prize
(Summer Gone)
- Winner
of the 1992 Canadian Authors' Association Award for
Non-Fiction (The Danger Tree)
<TOP>
Book Reviews and Quotes
Summer Gone: "In his elegant debut novel, Summer
Gone, David Macfarlane launches a metaphor that
could hardly be more Canadian…he is one of the country's
premier stylists…his prose is as light and flexible
as a finely carved paddle, and it manifests an astonishing
ability to summon the beauties of the north country."
—Maclean's
Summer Gone: "The rough landscape of northern Ontario
takes on universal dimensions in Summer Gone,
David Macfarlane's expertly controlled first novel...Gently,
as with a fine ghost story, Bay's complicated past is
lived and relived from different points on a shadowy
timeline. The pain of lost innocence ripples through
this remarkable novel. A lone instance of infidelity
troubles the middle-aged protagonist in ways that illustrate
the price of lust, and the eroding splendor of the Canadian
wilderness reflects the greed of reckless developers.
Yet the book wears its themes lightly. Macfarlane animates
Summer Gone with exacting descriptions of natural
life... The novel's language--perfectly tuned to guilt,
responsibility and transcendence --evokes the freshwater
lakes and rivers that the characters navigate. Stories-within-stories
gather force like tributaries. Finishing Summer Gone
leaves the reader with a sense of loss -- not only the
loss that inheres in Bay Newling's quiet tragedy, but
the loss of the narrator's good company upon reaching
the final page."
—The New York Times Book Review
Summer Gone: "Summer Gone is a homage
to our most excruciating and beautiful memories. Within
this novel is the marvellous height of summer, perfect
and fleeting, a place and time we can never get enough
of."
—The Globe and Mail
The Danger Tree: "[David Macfarlane's]
Newfoundland memoir, The Danger Tree, is easily
one of the most readable and beautifully written books
to emerge from Canada in recent years."
—Mordecai Richler,
Saturday Night
The Danger Tree: "The Danger Tree is a
masterpiece. David Macfarlane is an architect of the
past, building extraordinary memory mansions in which
the reader feels eerily at home."
—Alberto Manguel
<TOP>
Links
to Extra Resources
<TOP>
|
