Deze auteur verkent de complexe relatie tussen mensen en landschap, met name in de ruige omgeving van Cape Breton. Zijn proza is vaak lyrisch en toch scherpzinnig, en vangt zowel de schoonheid als de ontberingen van het leven. Door zijn schrijven duikt hij diep in thema's als identiteit, herinnering en de diepgaande invloed van thuis op de ziel. Zijn werk biedt een boeiende uitnodiging om na te denken over de plekken die we thuis noemen.
"Set against the unforgiving landscape of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, these stories are all concerned with the complexities and mysteries of the human heart. Steeped in memory and myth and washed in the brine and blood of the long battle with the land and the sea, they celebrate a passionate engagement with the natural world and a continuity of the generations in the face of transition in the face of love and loss."
The story of family, loyalty, and of the blood ties that bind us to the land from which our ancestors came.
Penelope Wain believes that her lover, Neil Macrae, has been killed while serving overseas under her father. That he died apparently in disgrace does not alter her love for him, even though her father is insistent on his guilt. What neither Penelope or her father knows is that Neil is not dead, but has returned to Halifax to clear his name. Hugh MacLennan’s first novel is a compelling romance set against the horrors of wartime and the catastrophic Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917.