WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE MONTH FOR JUNE
WELSH LIBRARIES BOOK OF THE MONTH FOR JUNE
BOOKS COUNCIL OF WALES BOOK OF THE MONTH FOR JUNE
'Hughes has produced a gripping yarn, vividly bringing the harsh realities of the fur trade to life, in this epic tale of fortune-seeking and ill-starred love.' – Kate Pullinger
Now what more foolish notion is there than that the Heavens might peek inside our skulls and, seeing the dissatisfied thoughts and daydreams there, decide to send us a Miraculous Solution...
Lower Canada, 1804.
Arthur Stanton, lacking direction in his life and desperately seeking the approval of his father, wanders the streets of Montreal filled with daydreams of exotic lands and adventures inspired by novels and traveller’s tales. On a sudden whim he decides to sign up as a clerk in the fur trade and is sent on a mission to recover a cache of furs obtained from a secret beaver El Dorado. Accompanied by a down-at-heel band of voyageurs, led by a disgraced and drunken trader, he embarks on a journey by birchbark canoe into the northern wilderness.
Paddling from Lachine to Lake Superior, and then across the unresolved border between Canada and the United States, Arthur’s travels will take him into a series of baffling new worlds, where he will prove himself to be hapless in trade, hopeless in love, and terrified of the landscapes and peoples that surround him. Stumbling from one mishap into another, he will at last fall into disaster, seemingly betray his friends and companions, and have to begin a quest to set things right.
Set amongst the starkly beautiful landscapes of the upper great lakes during an era of blurred and shifting boundaries between nations and cultures, where nothing is certain and misapprehensions can be fatal, Arthur’s journey becomes a tragicomic tale of love, loss and redemption.
"I guess all that changed was the realisation that, as a writer, there was another kind of vessel available for me to time travel in.
And so I began to write an historical novel. It would be an adventure story, a love story, a coming-of-age story, a wilderness picaresque..." – Tristan Hughes, On Being a Writer in Wales
