Canada

Description

First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. It was more bad instincts and bad luck that lead to Dell Parsons' parents robbing a bank. They weren't reckless people, but in an instant, their actions alter fifteen-year-old Dell's sense of normal life forever. In the days that follow, he is saved before the authorities think to arrive. Driving across Montana, his life hurtles towards the unknown; a hotel in a deserted town, the violent and enigmatic Arthur Remlinger, and towards Canada itself. But, as Dell discovers, in this new world of secrets and upheaval, he is not the only one whose past lies on the other side of the border.

Richard Ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1944. He has published seven novels and three collections of stories, including The Sportswriter, Independence Day, A Multitude of Sins, The Lay of the Land and, most recently, Canada. Independence Day was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the first time the same book had won both prizes. Canada was awarded the Prix Femina du livre etranger in France in 2013. Richard Ford lives in Maine with his wife, Kristina Ford.

A vast, magnificent canvas. This is one of the first great novels of the 21st century -- John Banville * Guardian * Ford is possessed of a writer's greatest gifts ... Pure vocal grace, quiet humor, precise and calm observation ... Ford's language is of the cracked, open spaces and their corresponding places within * Lorrie Moore, New Yorker * A brilliant and engrossing portrait of a fragile American family and the fragile consciousness of a teenage boy * Colm Toibin, Metro * A real king returns ... a story, and a vision, as sweeping as its landscapes * Boyd Tonkin, Independent * Astonishing ... Reviewers will be quick to proclaim that Richard Ford has written a great American novel, another masterpiece, and he most emphatically has. Canada is his finest work to date ... A powerfully human and profound novel that makes one sigh, shudder and weep. Here is greatness. No doubt about it * Eileen Battersby, Irish Times * His books will save you * GQ * A scrupulously rendered coming-of-age story * Anthony Cummins, Sunday Telegraph * The strength of the book is Ford's examination of flawed fatherhood, of the failures that push Dell into an uneasy maturity, one that allows him to achieve what remains the modest but profound goal of Ford's fiction: simply, to make a life ... his coda is as precise and measured as anything he has conjured before. The end, like a piece of origami, could fold right into the beginning of Ford's greatest novel, The Sportswriter. The sombre and gorgeous final two thirds of Canada rest next to Ford's best fiction * Craig Taylor, The Times * A true master of the modern American novel * Independent * Canada both grips and haunts * Douglas Kennedy, Independent * As opening lines go, they're corkers. The rest of the novel is quieter than you'd imagine but it amply fulfils their promise ... The result is prose so sonorous in its melancholy insightfulness that you'll want to linger over each sentence. Meanwhile, the story itself - a tale of what happens when uncrossable lines are crossed - will have you turning its pages ever faster * Daily Mail * Ford really excels in his virtuoso command of narrative suspense ... each part of Canada is superb in its own way ... [Ford is] a serious artist * New York Review of Books *