Island: The Complete Stories
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. First US Edition. Hard Cover. Fine / Fine. Item #2354801
ISBN: 9780393050356
First U.S. edition. An exceptional copy. Binding tight and square, pages clean, bright, and unmarked.
431 pp. A collection of short stories by the Canadian author best known for No Great Mischief, which was voted Atlantic Canada's greatest book of all time. Raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Alistair MacLeod has written two volumes of short stories and one novel. He is recognized as one of Canada's most distinguished writers. The sixteen exquisitely crafted stories in Island prove Alistair MacLeod to be a master. Quietly, precisely, he has created a body of work that is among the greatest to appear in English in the last fifty years. A book-besotted patriarch releases his only son from the obligations of the sea. A father provokes his young son to violence when he reluctantly sells the family horse. A passionate girl who grows up on a nearly deserted island turns into an ever-wistful woman when her one true love is felled by a logging accident. A dying young man listens to his grandmother play the old Gaelic songs on her ancient violin as they both fend off the inevitable. The events that propel MacLeod's stories convince us of the importance of tradition, the beauty of the landscape, and the necessity of memory.
Price: $10.00