Background information
May 9, 2008, press release: Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland & Labrador Announces Finalists
for the 2008 Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards
Adjudicator's comments
Cloud of Bone by Bernice Morgan
The epigraph of Bernice Morgan's Cloud of Bone is Milan Kundera's defence of the arts:
The struggle of man against power
is the struggle of memory against forgetting
Using male and female voices, sophisticated narrative techniques, a unique structure and compelling imagery, Bernice Morgan takes
the reader into the consciousness of three personalities separated by time, culture and gender but united in their powerlessness and their
struggle to make sense of their lives: Kyle Holloway, an impressionable young man growing up in pre-Confederation Newfoundland; a young
Beothuk girl, Shanawdithit, living in Central Newfoundland in the early years of the nineteenth century, and Dr. Judith Muir, an English
anthropologist in Rwanda in the 1990s. Despite their apparent distinctiveness, they are all helpless in the face of random acts of violence.
Despite their horror at witnessing rape, murder and genocide, they all recognize their own capacity for cruelty and betrayal in their struggle
to survive. And they all search for ways they as individuals can find beauty and meaning in a savage world.
In this broad ranging, complex novel, Bernice Morgan's creative imagination projects authentically and unsentimentally many dark scenarios.
Indeed, at times the most barbaric (417) do seem to have inherited the earth by brutalizing an individual's body, language and community.
But Morgan also gives us glimpses of the life-enhancing power of a self and a society that values collective memory, grounded in history,
culture and landscape. The liturgical vocal rhythms of the Beothuk, Nonosabasut, offer a way out of the darkness, if humanity can learn
how to share belongings, how to give and receive gifts, how to read signs and make cures, how to build canoes and mamateeks, how to respect
Baetha and all things that live in it, on it and around it. (301)
Through combining the language of the physical and metaphysical, Morgan is the Shadow-dancer for our post-colonial world, the keeper of shadows,
keeper of words, keeper of things we might forget. (178) For in that forgetting we all become powerless.
The Hour of Bad Decisions by Russell Wangersky
Russell Wangersky's short story collection, The Hour of Bad Decisions, is a painful, beautiful journey without maps through the
landscape of human relationships. Its author has managed the difficult feat of leaving the map bare for his characters to fill in–or not,
as the human condition cannot ultimately be defined; each of us draws a landscape that reflects our perceptions, desires and capabilities.
Sometimes "Here be dragons" is the best we can do, and Wangersky is smart enough to know this and write accordingly.
Wangersky's flawed, familiar characters carry these stories: in the course of their ordinary lives, they learn the extraordinary fact that love
is not something that can be moulded like wood or divined like weather, and that even the intricate machinery of the heart is clumsy and fallible.
Each attempts to make peace with the terrible unpredictability of themselves and others, usually through avoidance or acceptance, but occasionally
through the employment of desperate or even bizarre strategies.
Wangersky's characters may be navigating without benefit of compass, but their creator has all the tools he needs. He never lets his characters
down with a phrase or even a word that is false or foreign to their situations or sensibilities, and therefore he never lets his readers down.
boYs by Kathleen Winter
Kathleen Winters' boYs is a debut collection of short fiction that thrives on its own unconventionality. Using whatever methods she
can to defeat expectations (an elastic time-sense, odd details that constantly loom into the frame, interior monologues constructed out of
the loose ends of dangling, half-spoken feelings) Winters rewards readers with deeply felt tales—funny, startling, often dark—about the
relationships between men and women. Both spare and speeded-up, these stories have the energetic subtlety, kinetic quickness and emotional
honesty of an original voice.
What if Your Mom Made Raisin Buns by Catherine Hogan Safer
The picture book is a dual work of art–one in which text and illustration serve to enrich and extend each other. In What if Your Mom
Made Raisin Buns, Catherine Hogan Safer's droll narrative combines with Hilda Rose's playful illustrations to create a satisfying and
engaging read aloud for the pre-school set. The repetitive nature of the text allows children to quickly familiarize themselves with the story,
appealing to their sense of delight as they "read" along. The simple cartoon drawings not only reflect the story, but enrich the reading experience
by slyly offering two subplots which follow the adventures of the family pet and a duo of inquisitive ladybugs. This entertaining book will be a
hit with both parents and children.
Livyers World by Robin McGrath
Livyers World by Robin McGrath–The year 2000 arrived amid millennial anxiety about the potential of Y2K and then relief when the
devastation did not materialize. Imagine a future where it had and another–yet different from our own–where it hadn't. This is the
realm of possible futures Robin McGrath explores and interweaves in Livyers World. When Viddy encounters Saan in what seems to be a
speculative history project, he finds much more than virtual reality. Saan's New Labrador is all too real, and a thoughtful evocation of what
it means when shared histories and realities diverge. Richly imagined, Livyers World explores one of fiction's essential questions–
"what if?" And as it does, author Robin McGrath raises other intriguing questions: about the nature of knowledge, about the worth of friendship and
trust, about what we value and why.
The Raintree Rebellion by Janet McNaughton
Janet McNaughton's The Raintree Rebellion is a sophisticated, moving exploration of the nature of conflict and reconciliation. Through
her engaging protagonist, Blake Raintree, and a memorable supporting cast, McNaughton tackles serious subject matter in a fearless, vivid manner.
As usual, her attention to detail is admirable: her future world is meticulously created and believable. The writing is also excellent: always
rhythmic and precise, the pace and suspense always perfectly sustained. But it is the characters and subject matter that make this book so successful.
McNaughton believes that young people care about their world, and are more than willing to face its most difficult problems. In dealing with the
controversial topic of reconciliation, she treats young readers with the utmost respect and asks them to think seriously about what makes us truly
human. The fact that she accomplishes this in such an engrossing, vivid story shows what a fine writer she really is. Ambitious in its scope and
professionally executed, The Raintree Rebellion highlights the talents of a master storyteller.
|
|