First published 2004
Howard Norman transforms thirty years of Nova Scotia experiences into a collection that weaves together stories, folklore, memoir, nature writing, and poetry. The book follows intersecting themes and recurring motifs, with birds appearing throughout its pages. Norman presents the tale of Marlais Quire, who scandalized her community by leaving Nova Scotia in 1923 for New York, hoping to hear Joseph Conrad read his work publicly. The journey proves disastrous. The collection includes a "Birder's Notebook" filled with observations, stories about Glooskap, the Mi'kmaq cultural hero, and an account of Leon Trotsky's 1915 Halifax stop during his journey from New York exile toward the October Revolution. Norman illustrates his writing with his own photographs. For him, Nova Scotia offers profound tranquility while also delivering sudden emotional darkness. The chapters function as connected fragments of memory, each reflecting different aspects of his long relationship with this curious maritime region. Norman captures both the region's charm and its capacity to surprise visitors with unexpected emotional revelations.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, canadian-literature, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Halifax, New York, Nova Scotia
Period: 1915, 1923, 20th-century
224 pages · Hardcover · National Geographic