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|
The
2004 Award
|
|
The
Last Crossing |
Nominated by:
Publisher
of Nominated Edition:
|
| the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors |
|
ABOUT
THE BOOK
|
| Charles
and Addington Gaunt must find their brother Simon, who has gone missing
in the wilds of the American West. Charles, a disillusioned artist, and
Addington, a disgraced military captain, enlist the services of a guide
to lead them on their journey across a difficult and unknown landscape.
This is the enigmatic Jerry Potts, half Blackfoot, half Scottish, who suffers
his own painful past. The party grows to include Caleb Ayto, a sycophantic
American journalist and Lucy Stoveall, a wise and beautiful woman who travels
in the hope of avenging her sister's vicious murder. Later, the group is
joined by Custis Straw, a Civil War veteran searching for salvation and
Custis's friend and protector Aloysius Dooley, a saloonkeeper. This unlikely
posse becomes entangled in an unfolding drama that forces each person to
come to terms with his own demons. The Last Crossing contains many haunting scenes - among them, a bear hunt at dawn, the meeting of a Métis caravan, the discovery of an Indian village decimated by smallpox, a sharpshooter's devastating annihilation of his prey, a young boy's last memory of his mother. Vanderhaeghe links the hallowed colleges of Oxford and the pleasure houses of London to the treacherous Montana plains; and the rough trading posts of the Canadian wilderness to the heart of Indian folklore. At the novel's centre is an unusual and moving love story. It is a novel of harshness and redemption, an epic masterpiece, rich with unforgettable characters and vividly described events. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
| Guy Vanderhaeghe is the author of three previous novels, My Present Age, Homesick and The Englishman's Boy, which won the Governor General's Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 1998? and three collections of short stories, Man Descending, The Trouble with Heroes and Things as They Are? He lives in Saskatoon, Canada. |
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