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Providence Island
Submitted by dmacdonell on Wed, 2010-03-31 23:54
- 978-1-55488-771-2
- February 2011
- 216pp, Paperback
- $21.99 CAD
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Returning to Ontario's northern lakes as an adult to bury his father, Ray Carrier is taken back not only to a tangled romance in that green paradise but also to the forests and lonesome swamps that have haunted his dreams. As a teenager, Ray was enchanted by the grace and privilege of the Miller family on Providence Island, part of the wealthy resort community up the road from the farm where Ray and his widowed father spent their summers. Ray's father had always said that he was too impressed by money. But it was more than that. There was Quentin Miller, a beautiful girl, older than Ray, who thought nothing of strolling to the end of a dock, stripping naked, and diving into the lake. But something happened near the abandoned railway tracks long ago — something that shattered Ray's illusions of love and money. And now something must be settled before Ray can achieve peace and let go of Providence Island and the Millers once and for all.
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In this gripping novel, when his father’s funeral brings Ray Carrier back to cottage country, where he spent summers as a child, memories of the past – like the mystery surrounding a terrible death – keep him from leaving again
Cottage Life MagazineA classic “coming of age” story, Providence Island begins in the present moment of adult Carrier’s fragmenting life in the United States, then connects to the unfolding drama of his father’s inexplicable action with a boat and his death back in Muskoka, and proceeds through a gradual unfolding of the tale of Ray and his dad and the deep forces that propell each of them.
Ray is driven to search for the font of his yearning, as he’s being held back in life by a narrative that he must close out. We all seem to have those narratives, those back stories that add baggage, and we’d all do well to deal with them, as has Ray. Confront it — and walk away ... if you can.
Hamilton Spectator