Following the coast on their summer vacation, the Henrys stop at the beach to break up the monotony of their road trip. Matty and Nat build castles in the sand as Anne and David take turns minding the children. A moment of distraction, a blink of the eye, and the life they know is swept away forever.
Like shipwrecks lost at sea, each member of the family sinks under the weight of their shared tragedy. All seems lost but life is long. There are many ways to heal a wound, there are many ways to form a family, and as the Henrys discover, there are many roads to Atlantis.
Leo Brent Robillard is an award-winning author and educator. His novels include Leaving Wyoming, which was listed in Bartley's Top Five in the Globe and Mail for Best First Fiction; Houdini's Shadow, which was translated into Spanish; and, most recently, Drift. In 2011, he received the Premier's Award for Teacher of the Year. He lives in Eastern Ontario with his wife and two children.
Leo Brent Robillard's The Road to Atlantis is a poignant, resonant tale of a family's dissolution following the death of their daughter. In gorgeous, gripping prose, he explores how individuals cope with tragedy and how grief sifts through the generations until it can finally settle and heal. This is a novel that echoes with human emotion and meaning and that deserves to be read.
"A great read, beautifully constructed."
An intimate portrait of a family blown apart by a tragic accident — a grievous loss that can never be reversed, only borne. As sensitively as a surgeon, Robillard traces the impact of that terrible moment on each of his characters, and we watch, breathless, as each finds their own way to heal.