Synopses & Reviews
A powerful first novel about a family that slips from fortunes favor and a town broken by the forces of modernityAcross a bend of Ontarios Attawan River lies the Island, a working-class neighborhood of whitewashed houses and vine-freighted fences, black willows and decaying sheds. Here, for generations, the Walkers have lived among the other mill workers.
The familys troubles begin in the summer of 1965, when a union organizer comes to town and Alf Walker is forced to choose between loyalty to his friends at the mill and advancement up the company ranks. Alfs worries are aggravated by his wife, Margaret, who has never reconciled her middle-class English upbringing to her blue-collar reality. As the summer passes, Joe, their son, is also forced to reckon with his familys standing when he falls headlong for a beautiful newcomer on a bridge—a girl far beyond him, with greater experience and broader horizons. As the threat of mill closures looms, the Walkers grapple with their personal crises, just as the rest of the town fights to protect its way of life amid the risks of unionization and the harsh demands of corporate power.
Superbly crafted and deeply moving, this remarkable debut follows the Walkers to the very bottom of their night only to confirm, in the end, lifes ultimate hopefulness. The Island Walkers is at once a love letter to a place, a gripping family saga, and a testimony to the emergence of an important new novelist.
Review
"[A]n astonishing debut, a big and breathtaking family novel that is both understated and passionate." Booklist
Review
"[A] finely wrought first novel....From a writer to be watched: a sobering reminder of the costs of change." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[P]owerful...[A] balanced but gut-wrenching working-class novel that can be read as a sobering prequel to Richard Russo's Empire Falls." Library Journal
Review
"Shortlisted for the Giller Prize, Canada's most prestigious literary award, [The Island Walkers] demonstrates Bemrose's success as a journalist and a poet, an author capable of clear-eyed narration and gorgeous description. Some readers may weary of the novel's omnivorous perspective, its almost desperate sense that nothing can be left out, but if that's a fault, it's an embarrassment of riches." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)
Synopsis
Superbly crafted and deeply moving, this remarkable debut follows one family, the Walkers, to the very bottom of their night only to confirm, in the end, life's ultimate hopefulness. "The Island Walkers" is at once a love letter to a place, a gripping family saga, and a testimony to the emergence of an important new novelist.
Synopsis
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
A Finalist for the 2003 Giller Prize
Across a bend of Ontario's Attawan River lies the Island, where, for generations, the Walkers have lived among other mill workers. But in the summer of 1965, with the threat of mill closures looming, the Walkers grapple with their personal crises, just as the rest of the town fights to protect its way of life.
Superbly crafted and deeply moving, this book is at once a love letter to a place, a gripping family saga, and testimony to the emergence of an important new novelist.
About the Author
John Bemrose is a contributing editor at
Macleans magazine, where he writes features, profiles, and criticism. A native of Paris, Ontario, he lives in Toronto;
The Island Walkers is his first novel.