The review of all reviews

There’s a small stack of reviews of New Under the Sun.

You likely don’t have time to read them all. How about I do the author/editor thing and combine parts of several of them into the review-of-all-reviews?

Sharon Hunt

New Under the Sun, the new novel by Kevin Major, offers book lovers three bonuses. First, the cover is beautiful — greens, browns, and blues of land, sea and sky — reminiscent of a Group of Seven painting. Second, the typeface is clean, elegant and a pleasure to read (no small consideration for people who read a lot). Third, this is a novel that insists you settle in to enjoy the story, no matter what else you should be doing (“only 10 more minutes”; “only five more pages” are chants quickly abandoned).

Gary Geddes

One of the central issues Kevin Major explores in New Under the Sun is a question poet John Newlove posed many years ago: “Whose land this is, and is to be.” It’s a question that concerns all of us: Newfoundlanders, aboriginal people and subsequent immigrants, including the recently arrived boatload of Tamil refugees.

Major’s fascinating exploration of this matter begins with the return of Shannon to the Rock. She’s a Newfoundlander who went as far west as possible to escape her family history, but Vancouver’s employment and romantic options sour and she accepts a job with Parks Canada to reassess the Viking site at L’Anse aux Meadows and the 7,500-year-old archaic burial site at L’Anse Amour in Labrador. The “return” is also a chance to rediscover her roots. Shannon will eventually meet and become involved with Simon, a teacher of mixed blood who wants the Viking sites reinterpreted to reflect the presence of and contact with the various indigenous peoples.

Before Shannon’s awkward re-entry has progressed very far, a new narrative unfolds, that of Nonosa, leader of the Kanawashish tribe in Labrador, who first discovers the coast and its marine riches. Nonosa’s good fortune, which he is willing to share with kindred tribes, angers his cousin and rival clan leader, Remesh. The story of Nonosa and his daughter lays the groundwork for an eventual migration of one of the tribes across the waters to Newfoundland.

The third narrative concerns vain, ambitious and pompous prig William Cormack, born in Newfoundland to a Scots family. Believing he is doing her, himself and history a favour, Cormack has Shawnadithit, the last surviving Beothuk, removed from the welcoming family home of the Peytons into his own care so he can extract information about her doomed tribe.

Christina Decarie

Their stories are equal parts historical fact and flights of fancy, and the writing … paints a bleak, beautiful picture of a land where a person can resemble “a fish washed up on rock” and houses are painted “fog-burning yellow.”

Each narrative is compelling in its own way: Nonosa’s story is unashamedly florid, for example, while Shanawdithit’s, as told through the eyes of Cormack, is a stark history of genocide.

Joan Sullivan

Major’s research seems thorough, and its use supple, as he constructs the various formats of these texts, which animate the novel — as does the fact that the characters sometimes dismiss them as unrealistic. It is fun to see Major play with this structure of books-within-books.

This novel, engaging both Major’s narrative skill and his interest in provincial history, makes for his strongest work in years — which is saying something.

Doug O’Neill

Buying  for a book lover this holiday season? Check out our gift guide to the 10 best books for the CanLit fan on your list.

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A pair of Festivals

I’ve just returned from Newfoundland’s two August literary festivals — Winterset in Summer, in Eastport, Bonavista Bay and Writers at Woody Point, in Bonne Bay. They made for an exciting ten days of readings, book talks, music, food and wine. Lots to cheers about. There’s no decline in interest in the printed word, if these gatherings are any indication.

On the evening of August 13 I shared the Winterset stage with Bernice Morgan and Annamarie Beckel, for a session titled “Lost Voices”, focussing on the fictional portrayals of Shanawdithit (the last of the Beothuks, the extinct aboriginal tribe of Newfoundland).

Two days later we launched New Under the Sun, with 80+ people filling Vicky’s Café. Not bad for 10 am on a Sunday morning! Sharing in the event were my editor and publisher Marc Côté of Cormorant Books, and the publisher’s co-owner John Pugsley. The nervy part of a launch for me is always the book signing that follows, specifically remembering the names of old friends I haven’t seen in years. (Sorry about that, Alice!)

Special thanks to Richard Gwyn and the Winterset Committee for including the book launch in this year’s program. It was a great celebration. What awaits the novel only time will tell.

The Friday that followed found me on the west coast of Newfoundland, sharing the Heritage Theatre stage in Woody Point with the cheery (and very funny) Alexander McCall Smith.  It was opportunity to read from four different sections of New Under the Sun, showing a range of characters and historical detail. Thanks to all who attended for your enthusiastic support.

The next morning an intrepid gang of festival goers showed up at the more intimate setting of Galliott Studios on Water Street, with readings interspersed with cappuccino and conversation.

It wasn’t all readings and literary celebration. Music is a big part of the festival in Woody Point, both as part of the formal sessions and around town in the late night hours. Here the Legion comes alive with Montreal bluesman Shane Murphy. Would that be multi-award winning Canadian author Joseph Boyden joining him on harmonica?

New in my hands

The book has arrived.

Not quite in the stores yet, but I have a single copy in my hands. New Under the Sun arrived by Xpress post from the publisher on Thursday. It has been nearly a decade since I began this project – research, writing, rejection, rewriting, rejection again, again, again, etc, perserverance, finally finding someone who believed in it (Marc!), restructuring, polishing, proofing, sending it out into the world.

The moment of opening the package is like no other such experience since that of my first book in 1978. And what a handsome production. The deep commitment of Cormorant Books to this project is in every square centimetre of the finished book. I am thrilled, almost beyond belief.

For if there is one thing a writer needs beyond all others is a belief in the soundness of the words he chooses to put to paper, the fortitude to reject the opinions of the non-believers.

To celebrate, a family meal – good food, good wine, crowned by very special peach pie. The sun shines today.

On stage in Trinity

Last night marked the opening of the second season for my play LEAD ME HOME at the Seasons in the Bight theatre festival in Trinity, Newfoundland. It follows Rising Tide Theatre’s successful run last summer. Directed by Donna Butt, the play features some of the province’s most accomplished actors.

Lead Me Home is a story set against the pre-dawn events of October 14, 1942 in the Cabot Strait, between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. At approximately  3:40 am the passenger ferry S.S. Caribou was sunk by German u-boat 69.

This is what Rising Tide writes in its brochure: The ship, like our play, was filled with music, laughter and romance as a lively mix of U.S. and British military personnel, civilians, and a Newfoundland crew, gathered around the piano in the ship’s lounge. They joked, they sang, they even had an innocent racket or two. In the early hours of October 14th tragedy struck. A German submarine hit and within 5 minutes the ferry was gone. As a small band of survivors cling to their lifeboat we watch a tale of courage and generosity unfold, guided by the haunting words of the Captain of the Caribou, Trinity native Ben Taverner.

See Rising Tide’s website  - www.risingtidetheatre.com – for more information and the performance schedule.

Also on the bill this year and marking its tenth season is NO MAN’S LAND, an adaptation of the novel I wrote about the Newfoundland Regiment at the infamous Battle of the Somme during WWI. Again, from the brochure:

July 1st, 1916 is remembered as the day the best and brightest of a generation of Newfoundland men were virtually wiped out. From every bay, cove and town, from fishing stage to merchant’s home, they marched off to the Great War, proud members of their very own Newfoundland Regiment, never suspecting what one terrible morning of treachery would bring. Our soldiers were part of the immeasurable toil of war, yet as they travelled to distant lands they were never without the spirit and humour they brought from their homeland. You will see why this July morning will never be forgotten.

Rising Tide continues to do an amazing production, filled with memorable images of young men at war – their laughter, their tragedy, their blighted ideals. As with Lead Me Home, the music of the era is an integral part of the show. It is an evening marked by wonderful performance and innovative staging. The play has a long history with artistic director Donna Butt and her Trinity audiences, made up of theatre goers from many corners of the world.

If you are visiting the Bonavista Peninsula this summer or fall, check out these or any other of the fine plays on stage at the Seasons in the Bight festival.

[For a Q&A with Donna on this year's season, visit the website of the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council.] http://www.nlac.nf.ca/feature/rise.htm

New novel, new blog

This is a fresh start.

I have a new novel due out in a few weeks. Titled New Under the Sun, it will be published by Cormorant Books.

Here’s what the publisher has to say about it:

An epic novel that unearths the rich and compelling human history of Newfoundland, as told through the voices of the many peoples – from the Maritime Archaic, to the Beothuk, to the Norse and other European settlers – who have, and continue to, inhabit the land.

Check out the publisher’s website - cormorantbooks.com - to find out more about the book, and to read an excerpt.

This is my third adult novel, and it’s been in the works for several years. I will be very excited to see it in print, and with such a prestigious literary publisher. I love the cover. It’s the work of Angel Guerra.

The book will be doubly launched this summer, at two Newfoundland literary festivals: Winterset in Summer (in Eastport, Bonavista Bay), and Writers at Woody Point (in Bonne Bay). They are both located in wonderfully scenic parts of the Island.

Eastport was home for me for 15 years. It is where my first book, Hold Fast, was written, and where Anne and I were married. It was in nearby Sandy Cove that our two sons romped through early childhood.

And on the west coast of the Island, down the road from Woody Point, is Shoal Harbour, where my mother was born in 1911. On the other side of Bonne Bay is Norris Point, the birthplace of my father.

So the book launches will have deep roots.