NEW NEWFIE NOVEL: I haven’t read anything by Canadian author Terry J. Harvey. But I will after reading about his latest book, The Town that Forgot How to Breathe. He somehow found me via the web. He said the novel “concerns what happens when the art of storytelling begins to die out in a small, coastal community.” Sounds good to me. So, as I look for Terry’s books, here’s a review excerpt of his latest from Publishers Weekly: “Harvey, a Newfoundlander himself, captures with his haunting voice the earthiness of an insular culture that's as distinct from the rest of Canada as small-town Southerners are from the rest of America. Comparisons with Stephen King's commercial power and Annie Proulx's literary warmth are apt but glib. Harvey is an author whose storytelling prowess can speak for itself.” I’ve read two fine novels by U.S. writers that are set in Newfoundland. One is The Shipping News, by Wyoming’s Annie Proulx, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Another was Howard Norman’s The Bird Artist, set in Witless Bay, Newfoundland, that was released about the same time (mid-1990s) and nominated for the National Book Award.

- posted by Michael Shay @ 9:29 AM