Saints Of Big Harbour

Fatherless teen Guy Boucher finds himself at the center of an ugly rumor involving a popular girl, in a story told from the viewpoints of his overbearing uncle Isadore, the Shakespeare-loving Pam, a draft-dodging English teacher, and a pair of emotional golden boys.

Guy Boucher, a fatherless teenager oppressed by the boredom and poverty of rural Nova Scotia, is dominated by his monstrous uncle, Isadore - alcoholic, capriciously violent and preternaturally vital. Isadore, who is permitted to board with Guy and his mother in exchange for the use of his red pick-up truck, is determined to make a man of Guy by forcing him to drink and play hockey. Guy dreams that access to the truck will be enough to attract a girlfriend from nearby Big Harbour. But when an awkward courtship turns sour, Guy touches off a sluggish tumult of violence fuelled by malice, booze and suffocating ennui. Told from the perspectives of several of the central characters, Saints of BIG HARBOUR brilliantly unravels the stories of each from the web that ensnares Guy.

"A true grit coming-of-age novel" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), Saints of Big Harbour is a funny, brutal, and vivid story about small-town life and the inescapable power of gossip. Lynn Coady gives us the unforgettable Guy Boucher, a fatherless teenager and recluse, who finds himself at the center of an ugly rumor. Several versions of truth emerge and collide through Guy's eyes and the stories of those who surround him -- his overbearing uncle, a girl idealized by her town, a quietly wise young woman wrestling with demons of her own, his draft-dodger English teacher, and a pair of golden boys trapped in emotional adolescence as well as Big Harbour itself.

According to its licence plates, tourist brochures, and commercials, Nova Scotia is Canada's Ocean Playground – an idyllic vacation spot brimming with traditional cultural experiences. Yet this picturesque and welcoming ad-friendly façade overlooks the province's history of industrial development, the impact of resource extraction on its landscape, and the effects of its painful and still unfinished period of deindustrialization. Recounting Nova Scotia's struggle to come to terms with its extractive and industrial past, Nights below Foord Street focuses on the spaces ignored by the province's annual Doers and Dreamers tourist guide. Drawing on literary texts by Lynn Coady, Leo McKay, Sarah Mian, and Jonathan Campbell, popular television shows such as Trailer Park Boys, and films including Blackbird, Cottonland, and Poor Boy's Game, Peter Thompson examines the ways in which contemporary authors, filmmakers, and artists explore the lingering consequences of the boom-and-bust cycles of mining and manufacturing. As he demonstrates, these narratives depict a legacy of environmental exploitation, pollution, intermittent disasters, and labour violence left behind by the industrial era, all of which contrast starkly with the romantic and nostalgic portrait of Nova Scotia's industrial heritage promoted in museums, monuments, and tourist sites. As Donald Trump and other populist politicians appeal to working-class nostalgia and international attention converges on environmental racism in northern Nova Scotia, Nights below Foord Street intervenes into debates over the cultural and social effects of the post-industrial economy.

"Ten years, ten authors, ten critics. The Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littâerature canadienne reached into its Brown Bag Lunch Reading Series to present a sampling of some of the most diverse and powerful voices in contemporary Canadian literature from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Each piece is accompanied by a concise critical essay addressing the author's writerly preoccupations and practices. The literary selections and essays will be of interest to engaged readers who want direction in analyzing these authors' work as well as to teachers and students of Canadian literature."--

Overcoming the Neutral Zone Trap challenges hockey’s norms, pushes its boundaries, and provides new ways of conceptualizing its role in North American culture. The editors of this engaging interdisciplinary collection use the metaphor of the neutral zone trap to explore the ways that hockey’s culture and structures work to exclude marginalized people. The book features both personal and scholarly accounts of agents of change—people, ideas, and events—that confront the challenges associated with making hockey a more inclusive space. By exposing assumptions about hockey culture, Overcoming the Neutral Zone Trap opens up critical discussions of previously underexplored topics as they relate to the women’s game, Indigenous participation, viable career pathways, masculine identities, hockey parents, mental health, and social media. This is a book for fans, players, organizers, and researchers alike. Contributors: Angie Abdou, Kieran Block, Cam Braes, William Bridel, Judy Davidson, Jonathon R.J. Edwards, Catherine Houston, Colin D. Howell, Chelsey H. Leahy, Roger G. LeBlanc, Cheryl A. MacDonald, Fred Mason, Brock McGillis, Vicky Paraschak, Brett Pardy, Ann Pegoraro, Kyle A. Rich, Tavis Smith, Noah Underwood

Hockey occupies a prominent place in the Canadian cultural lexicon, as evidenced by the wealth of hockey-centred stories and novels published within Canada. In this exciting new work, Jason Blake takes readers on a thematic journey through Canadian hockey literature, examining five common themes - nationhood, the hockey dream, violence, national identity, and family - as they appear in hockey fiction. Blake examines the work of such authors as Mordecai Richler, David Adams Richards, Paul Quarrington, and Richard B. Wright, arguing that a study of contemporary hockey fiction exposes a troubled relationship with the national sport. Rather than the storybook happy ending common in sports literature of previous generations, Blake finds that today's fiction portrays hockey as an often-glorified sport that in fact leads to broken lives and ironic outlooks. The first book to focus exclusively on hockey in print, Canadian Hockey Literature is an accessible work that challenges popular perceptions of a much-beloved national pastime.