Elizabeth & After: A Novel - Hardcover

Matt Cohen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0756795281 ISBN 13: 9780756795283

Publisher: Diane Pub Co, 1999

Synopsis

Cohen's final novel is a wise & triumphant story of one man's efforts to repair himself & the lives of those around him. It tells the touching story of Carl McKelvey, who in mid-life returns to the small town of West Gull, Ontario, to mend his family's legacy of alcohol & violence, to reconnect with his young daughter, & to reconcile himself with the spirit of his beautiful mother, killed several years earlier in a tragic accident. Carl's only problem is that West Gull won't have him. Hesitant to forgive his family's tragic legacy, the community still remembers his mother's radiant warmth, her popularity, & the suspicious circumstances of her passing. Carl realizes that it is up to his own heart, & the hearts of those in West Gull, to allow him a measure of forgiveness.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Carl McKelvey returns to small-town Ontario, to a landscape marred by 'progress' and dotted by monster homes, to see more of his young daughter Lizzie, and to put behind him the legacy of violence and alcohol that brought about his divorce and subsequent departure. But he soon discovers he is being watched with great interest by two men: the town's most prominent businessman, and his ex-wife's new husband--both engaged in a power struggle that is played out by others in parking lots and rural terrain under hot night skies. But what he doesn't see at first--as he tries to bury his feelings for his former wife--is that a third man is watching: a man who once loved Carl's intelligent and engimatic mother.

This three-generational story of passion and subterfuge is limned with Matt Cohen's gift for language and a narrative tension that embraces descriptions of astonishing beauty and power.

From the Back Cover:

Elizabeth and After constantly surprises with its compassion and generosity, and its luminous appreciation of landscape and community." -- Governor General's Award Juror's Citation

"A superb piece of storytelling." -- Saturday Night

"A mature, funny, engaging ... wonderful novel ... that nails you to the chair cushions (or bed pillows) from start to finish."-- The Edmonton Journal

"A novel with the power to remind readers why they read fiction in the first place ... It comes at age-old sorrow and joys from a new angle, and so serves as a reminder that the most astonishing of miracles is simply to be alive." -- Maclean's

About this edition

• Publisher: Diane Pub Co
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0756795281
• ISBN 13: 9780756795283
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 370