Running the Whale's Back

Stories of Faith and Doubt from Atlantic Canada

edited by Andrew Atkinson, by Carol Bruneau & Alistair MacLeod

tagged: religious, anthologies (multiple authors)

Description

In a collection as fine in scope as it is intimate in detail, Running the Whale's Back presents a host of Eastern Canada's brightest literary talents, all putting pens to paper to explore the multiple facets of what we call "faith" through a unique Atlantic vantage point.

In a satisfying mixture of styles and themes, the full breadth of Atlantic Canadian spirituality is revealed. These are pieces that poke and prod, ruminate and circulate with themes of religion and cultures of spirituality. Mysticism meets piety, holiness argues with practicality, and hope lives side by side with despair as the stories spiral and waltz themselves across the four provinces.

As the authors leap from subject to subject, we discover death lurking in the lonely wilderness, ski jumpers participating in miracles, and preachers suffering marital discord. Featured authors are Michael Crummey, Sheldon Currie, Joan Clark, David Adams Richards, Kenneth J. Harvey, Clive Doucet, Deborah Joy Corey, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Michael Hennessey, Lynn Coady, D.R. MacDonald, Jessica Grant, Michael Winter, Samuel Thomas Martin, Michelle Butler Hallett, Kathleen Winter, and Ann Copeland.

About the Authors

Andrew Atkinson is a part-time faculty member in the Department of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University who has published on Wayne Johnston, Flannery O'Connor, and Linden MacIntyre.

Carol Bruneau is the author of eleven books: four short story collections, including Threshold, one work of nonfiction, No Ordinary Magic: the Art of Laurie Swim, and six novels. These include Purple for Sky, A Circle on the Surface, and These Good Hands, a novel based on the life and art of sculptor Camille Claudel, and most recently, Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis, longlisted for the 2022 International Dublin Literary Award. Her fiction has been published internationally. Her articles, short fiction, and literary and visual arts reviews have appeared nationwide in journals and newspapers, and her stories and essays in various anthologies. A past winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and two Dartmouth Book Awards, Bruneau lives and writes in Halifax/Kjipuktuk, Nova Scotia/Mi'kmaki.

Alistair MacLeod was born in Saskatchewan but was raised in Cape Breton. He has published three short story collections: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, As Birds Bring Forth the Sun, and Island: The Collected Stories. His novel, No Great Mischief, won many honours including the Trillium Award for Fiction, the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Editorial Reviews

"Serves to highlight this perpetual return to contemporary issues of faith: whether that faith be religious, economic, sexual or familial. ... These are stories that should be contemplated slowly and treated as individual meditations."

— Atlantic Books Today

"A great read from cover to cover."

— Quill & Quire

"While their origins are grounded and specific, the spiritual musings themselves are diffuse. ... the book's success — and it is a great read from cover to cover — comes down to the high quality of the stories themselves."

— Quill & Quire

"T;rancendence seems to be the word that applies to this collection. ... Running the Whale's Back, through its themes of death and love that lock arms with belief and doubt, shows that age-old ideas are the best ones humans ever had, do have, will have, forever and ever. The ideas seem so good and lasting because they are articulated through the transcendent aesthetics of language, of story."

— Winnipeg Review

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Running the Whale's Back

Stories of Faith and Doubt from Atlantic Canada

edited by Andrew Atkinson, by Carol Bruneau & Alistair MacLeod

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