Come from Away - Hardcover

Macfarlane, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671747053 ISBN 13: 9780671747053

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1991

Synopsis

The author traces the history of his mother's family in Newfoundland, portraying the events of everyday life and relating major episodes in Newfoundland's past that had a profound effect on his family

About this title

About the Author:

David Macfarlane was born in Canada, in 1952, and was educated at the University of Toronto. A regular contributor to several magazines and one of Canada's leading journalists, he has won numerous national awards for his stories. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Like the legendary stories his Newfoundland relatives told- -stories that flowed back and forth, picking up after interruptions--Macfarlane offers a book in which personal memoir, history, and reflection on war all come together in one memorable, luminous whole. Growing up in Canada, Macfarlane was soon aware of the great difference between his father's relations, who maintained silence ``with the same hospitable agility a graceful conversationalist uses to overcome it,'' and his mother's family from Newfoundland, who loved to talk ``in great looping circles.'' And it is these stories of the Goodyear family of Newfoundland, which Macfarlane recalls as he relates a family history, that are in many ways a history of Newfoundland itself. Until voting to join Canada in 1948, Newfoundland was Britain's oldest colony, and this decision, which the author's grandfather could never forgive, led to one of the great family stories, for the old man apparently once told the now-Queen, in Newfoundland on a visit, exactly what he thought. An integral part of Newfoundland, the Goodyears immigrated from the western coast of England in the early 18th century, living first in an isolated fishing village, then moving in 1908 to Grand Falls in the interior. Here, in this company town established to provide paper for one of Britain's great press-barons, they prospered, but, like so many loyal Newfoundlanders, the Goodyears were irrevocably affected by WW I. Two thirds of the Newfoundlanders who volunteered were either killed or wounded; the Goodyear family sent five sons, and only two returned. It is this war that resonates through Macfarland's story: the way in which the family and the island responded, and were then subsequently changed, describes a place and a people of fierce independence, courage and loyalty, who would never be quite the same again. A remarkable and beautifully written book in which the rich stuff of family and local history join together to entertain, to instruct, and to move deeply. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0671747053
• ISBN 13: 9780671747053
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240