Robertson Davies

Wayne Johnston

Magnus Eisengrim, the illustrious magician star of a movie being filmed in Switzerland, spends his free time relating the sad story of his life to his director and producer, a cameraman, a mysterious hostess, and a Canadian schoolmaster, in the third volume of the Deptford Trilogy. Reprint.

World of Wonders

A masterwork from one of the country's most critically acclaimed and beloved writers that is both compulsively readable and heartstopping in the vital truth it reveals. Unfolding them in a novel that grapples with sexual abuse, male violence and madness, Wayne Johnston reveals haunting family secrets he's kept for more than 30 years. Wade Jackson, a young man from a Newfoundland outport, wants to be a writer. In the university library in St. John's, where he goes every day to absorb the great books of the world, he encounters the fascinating, South African-born Rachel van Hout, and soon they are lovers. Rachel is the youngest of four van Hout daughters. Her Dutch-born father, Hans, lived in Amsterdam during WWII, and says he was in the Dutch resistance. After the war, he emigrated to South Africa, where he met his wife, Myra, had his daughters and worked as an accounting professor at the University of Cape Town. Something happened, though, that caused him to uproot his family and move them all, unhappily, to Newfoundland. Wade soon discovers that the beautiful van Hout daughters are each in their own way a wounded soul. The oldest, Gloria, is a hypersexual exhibitionist who, by the age of twenty-eight, has been married five times. Carmen is addicted to every drug her Afrikaner drug-pusher husband, Fritz, can lay his hands on. Bethany, aka Deathany, the most sardonic and self-deprecating of the sisters, is fighting a losing battle with anorexia. And then there is Rachel, who reads The Diary of Anne Frank obsessively, and diarizes her days in a secret language of her own invention, writing to the point of breakdown and beyond. As the truth works its way inevitably to the surface, Wade learns that nothing in the world of the van Houts is what it seems, and that Rachel's obsession with Anne Frank has deeper and more disturbing roots than he could ever have imagined. Wayne Johnston takes beautiful risks here, bringing the abuser, Hans, to life largely through the verses of the ballad Hans composes to indoctrinate his little girls. Confronting the central mystery of his own and Rachel's lives, Wayne has transfigured the "material," creating a tour-de-force that pulls the reader toward a conclusion both inevitable and impossible to foresee.

The Mystery of Right and Wrong

A young man from St. John's attends Princeton University where his life becomes intertwined with the son of the richest man in America.

A World Elsewhere

Jennie’s Boy

First Snow, Last Light

A Memoir

Baltimore's Mansion

A Novel

The Navigator of New York 

The custodian of paradise

1. Johnston has said that he finds it hard to read books in which there’s absolutely no humour. How does humour contribute to the character of Devlin? 2. The Navigator of New York is filled with descriptions of places; which scene or setting struck you the most powerfully, and why? 3. What role do letters and lies play in The Navigator of New York ?

The Navigator of New York

Wayne Johnston was born and raised in the St. John's area of Newfoundland. His #1 nationally bestselling novels include The Custodian of Paradise, The Navigator of New York and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, which was an international bestseller and will be made into a film. Johnston is also the author of an award-winning and bestselling memoir, Baltimore's Mansion. He lives in Toronto.

The Custodian of Paradise

Wayne Johnston is a brilliant and accomplished writer' Annie Proulx Shortlisted for two major literary awards in Canada, Wayne Johnston's epic novel of his native Newfoundland has been universally praised in the United States and in Britain. Taking the career of Newfoundland's first premier, Joseph Smallwood, as its starting point, it is a mystery, a love story and a tragi-comic elegy to an impossible country stranded on the brink of the world. 'Ambitious and sweeping . . . it weaves around Smallwood a glowing fiction threaded through with the story of the island itself. As with The Shipping News, the unforgiving landscape of the island is wonderfully captured' Dominic Bradbury, The Times 'An insider's paean of love and regret for his vanished land' Marcel Berlins, National Post (Ottowa) 'Mesmerizing . . . a novel of cavernous complexity that nevertheless doesn't overwhelm the reader, who can repose in pure narrative without a second thought' Luc Sante, New York Times Book Review 'A long, impassioned, absorbing novel . . . bravura storytelling' Denis Drabelle, Washington Post

The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams

Stuffed Animals is a collection of haunting, sparsely wrought micro fiction. Each story invites the reader in and then delights and torments them with surprises and plot twists. Whether you are in the mood for black humour, spine-tingling horror, or soul-wrenching tragedy, you will find it within these pages. While the stories explore a wide range of themes and genres, they share an interest in word play and conceptual games. With complex imagination, compelling characters, and gripping storylines, Stuffed Animals asks the reader to sit down, dig in, and not let go. It captures an unsettling balance of beauty and repulsion, the writing versing more as artistic expression than conventional storytelling.

A Collection of Microfiction

Stuffed Animals

At the centre of The Navigator of New York is the rivalry between Robert Peary and Frederick Cook to be the first American to reach the North Pole. Its protagonist, however, is Devlin Stead, a young man from St John's, Newfoundland. Devlin's mother dies, in mysterious circumstances, when he is only five, and he endures a lonely childhood before discovering the truth about his parentage. That discovery transforms his life: he finds his true father and embarks on a journey of unbelievable risk. His adventure brings him celebrity, acclaim from New York 'society', real love, and finally the truth about the bitter feud between two strange, driven men.

The Navigator Of New York

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, a Canadian bestseller, is a novel about Newfoundland that centres on the story of Joe Smallwood, the true-life controversial political figure who ushered the island through confederation with Canada and became its first premier. Narrated from Smallwood's perspective, it voices a deep longing on the part of the Newfoundlander to do something significant, “commensurate with the greatness of the land itself.” Smallwood’s chronicle of his development from poor schoolboy to Father of the Confederation is a story full of epic journeys and thwarted loves, travelling from the ice floes of the seal hunt to New York City, in a style reminiscent at times of John Irving, Robertson Davies and Charles Dickens. Absorbing and entertaining, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams provides us with a deep perspective on the relationship between private lives and what comes to be understood as history and shows, as E. Annie Proulx commented, “Wayne Johnston is a brilliant and accomplished writer.” The New York Times said, “this prodigious, eventful, character-rich book is a noteworthy achievement: a biting, entertaining and inventive saga.... a brilliant and bravura literary performance.”

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The Mystery of Right and Wrong is a masterwork from one of the country’s most critically acclaimed and beloved writers that is both compulsively readable and heartstopping in the vital truth it unfolds. In a novel that grapples with sexual abuse, male violence and madness, Wayne Johnston reveals haunting family secrets he’s kept for more than thirty years. Wade Jackson, a young man from a Newfoundland outport, wants to be a writer. In the university library in St. John’s, where he goes every day to absorb the great books of the world, he encounters the fascinating, South African-born Rachel van Hout, and soon they are lovers. Rachel is the youngest of four van Hout daughters. Her father, Hans, lived in Amsterdam during the Second World War, and says he was in the Dutch resistance. When the war ended, he emigrated to South Africa, where he met his wife, Myra, had his daughters and worked as an accounting professor at the University of Cape Town. Something happened, though, that caused him to uproot his family and move them all, unhappily, to Newfoundland. Wade soon discovers that Rachel and her sisters are each in their own way a wounded soul. The oldest, Gloria, has a string of broken marriages behind her. Carmen is addicted to every drug her Afrikaner dealer husband, Fritz, can lay his hands on. Bethany, the most sardonic of the sisters, is fighting a losing battle with anorexia. And then there is Rachel, who reads The Diary of Anne Frank obsessively, and diarizes her days in a secret language of her own invention, writing to the point of breakdown and beyond—an obsession that has deeper and more disturbing roots than Wade could ever have imagined. Confronting the central mystery of his character Rachel’s life—and his own—Wayne Johnston has created a tour-de-force that pulls the reader toward a conclusion both inevitable and impossible to foresee. As he writes, “The Mystery of Right and Wrong is a memorialization of the lost, the missing women of the world, and of my world. I see it not as a dark book, but as one that sheds light—a lot of light—on things that, once illuminated, lose their power to distort the truth.”

Wayne Johnston is Canada's Roddy Doyle" Anne-Marie McDonald, author of Fall Down on Your Knees Young Draper Doyle Ryan lives in a most peculiar household. His relations, proudly eccentric and passionately Catholic, run a rather shabby newspaper, a funeral home, a convent and an orphanage. When they're not attending wakes or going to confession, they're watching Hockey Night in Canada, cheering for their beloved -- and Catholic -- Montreal Canadiens in their never-ending jousts with the Protestant Toronto Maple Leafs. A bewildered Draper Doyle tries to make sense of all this. But he's plagued by the first stirrings of his own budding sexuality. Then there are the sudden ghostly appearances of his recently deceased father. What is the secret behind that death, he wonders. And will the Habs beat the Leafs and win the Stanley Cup? Canadian reviews: "An authentic comic genius" Montreal Gazette "An absolute stunner -- achingly funny, needle sharp and packing an unexpected wallop . . . The literary equivalent of a small-budget movie masterpiece with heart, soul and brains" Time Out

The Divine Ryans

Roman

Die Kolonie der unerfüllten Träume

Longlisted for the Giller Prize and a national bestseller from one of Canada's most acclaimed, beloved storytellers: The Son of a Certain Woman is Wayne Johnston's funniest, sexiest novel yet, controversial in its issues, wise, generous and then some in its depiction of humanity. Percy Joyce, born in St. John's, Newfoundland, in the 50s is an outsider from childhood, set apart by a congenital disfigurement. Taunted and bullied, he is also isolated by his intelligence and wit, and his unique circumstances. Soon on the cusp of teenagehood, Percy is filled with yearning, wild with hormones, and longing for what he can't have--wanting to be let in...and let out. At the top of his wish list is his disturbingly alluring mother, Penelope, whose sex appeal fairly leaps off the page. Everyone in St. John's lusts after her--including her sister-in-law, Medina; their paying boarder, the local chemistry teacher, Pops MacDougal; and...Percy. The Son of a Certain Woman brilliantly mixes sorrow and laughter as it builds toward an unforgettable ending. Will Pops marry Penelope? Will Penelope and Medina be found out? Will Percy be lured into the Church? It is a reminder of the pain of being an outsider; of the sustaining power of love and the destructive power of hate; and of the human will to triumph.

The Son of a Certain Woman

From the author of the prizewinning and bestselling The Colony of Unrequited Dreamscomes an epic family mystery with a powerful, surprise ending, and featuring the return of the ever-fascinating, always memorable Sheilagh Fielding. In the chill hush that precedes the first storm of the winter of 1936, 14-year-old Ned Vatcher comes home from school to find the house locked, the family car missing, and his parents gone without a trace. From that point on, his life is driven by the need to find out what happened to the Vanished Vatchers. His father, Edgar, born to a poor family of fishermen, had risen to become the right-hand man to the colony's prime minister, then suffered an unexpected fall from grace. Were he and his wife murdered? Was it suicide? Had they run away? If so, why had they left their only child behind? Ned soon finds himself enmeshed in another family, that of his missing father and the poverty from which the man somehow escaped. His grandparents, Nan and Reg, his Uncle Cyril and others, are themselves haunted by the inexplicable disappearance of a third Vatcher, a young man who was lost at sea on a calm and sunny day years earlier. As Ned becomes Newfoundland's first media mogul and builds an empire to insulate him from loss, two other people loom large in his life: a Jesuit priest named Father Duggan, and Sheilagh Fielding, a boozy giantess who, while wandering the city streets at night, composes satiric columns that scandalize the rich and powerful. In Ned, Fielding sees a surrogate for her two lost children, while Ned believes the enigmatic Fielding to be his soulmate. The novel builds to a spectacular resolution of the mystery of all the Vanished Vatchers, with these larger-than-life, mythic characters embroiled in events that leave us contemplating not only their tragedies and triumphs, but the forces that compel us all to act in ways that surprise and sometimes terrify us.

Wayne Johnston

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