When Don Gutteridge retired from academia in 1993, he intended to say my farewell by publishing a selection of the forty essays he had written over a long career. He gathered them together and gave them a title: The Myth Alive. However, other projects soon began competing for his time. He published two memoir novels in quick succession: Summer's Idyll (1993) and Winter's Descent (1995). Then as a last pedagogical hurrah, he wrote a small volume on teaching theory (Teaching English:...
In a wonderful follow up to Summer's Idyll, the book that first introduced his readers to protagonist «Billy» or «Junior,» this second work, Winter's Descent continues this lovely story and will certainly keep readers enthralled from beginning to end. Following Billy and his life as he moves with his mother to the countryside of Ontario during the Second World War, the story is one that provides deeply personal historical detail that Gutteridge's fans have come to know and love....
An inspiring story set in the time of the Great Depression, Bewilderment: A Novel of the Great Depression follows the story of a coal delivery man, Gabriel «Gabe» Goodfellow, who wants to lighten the hearts of the people in homes he visits. Poverty is felt everywhere and people are hopeless. So, he thinks that there can be some joy and inspiration by arranging for the carnival to visit the town. His intentions are pure and altruistic, but then he has to deal with family problems. Things get...
Lily Fairchild is a novel about a remarkable woman, born in the backwoods of Lambton County, Ontario in 1840. Lily’s struggle to survive and grow and discover her place in the scheme of things is complicated not only by the ordinary travail of pioneer living but by the impact of historical events themselves: the railroads and their cutthroat competition, the Riel Rebellions, the First World War and the influenza pandemic of 1918. During her long life Lily witnesses the birth of a nation and the...
Bus-Ride is a week in the lives of the people of a small Ontario town in March 1939, most notably in the life of Bill Underhill. Bill is the town’s star hockey player, scouted by the big leagues and certain of a pro career. Everyone is sure he will leave the village one day as the Leafs’ new centre, everyone but Bill. This is definitely a poet’s novel. What might have been another pedestrian boy-grows-to-manhood-unsubtle-autobiography becomes first-class fiction with Gutteridge’s skill and wit –...
