This is a unique book about how one writer's journey. David Adams Richards created a unique life as a writer. This book is a memoir like no other that I have read.
This book is notes about the author's more than fifth years as a writer. It chronicles his early childhood, his high school years of turmoil and rebellion, and his uneasy relationship with both publishers and academics.
Throughout, Richards records his continuous investigation into human conflict, into the chasm between the seeking of power and the knowledge of love. Crucially and poignantly, he recounts how for hears his wife Peggy has been his greatest ally and supporter.
This book includes his relationships with other writers such as Alden Nowlan, Alistar MacLeod, P.K. Page, Joel Hines, and Patrick Lane, and his friendship with Ray Fraser among others. Here, too, are his views on writers like Orwell, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky.
Readers will learn of his determination to write against all odds, from the early books like The Coming of Winter, Blood Ties and Lives of Short Duration, to his later works, such as Mercy Among the Children, Crimes Against My Brother, and Darkness.
Richards believes that suffering is inherent and so is joy. He reflects on the absolute necessity of reaching towards a spiritual life (if not a religious one) as well as his knowledge of war and revolutions, and how both swallow humanity's greater need for justice and liberty.
Richards is the author of thirty-five books. He has won the Governor General's Award in Both fiction and non-fiction as well the Giller Prize. He lives in New Brunswick.
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