A Witness to Life
Published on 1. April 2014
192 pages
978-1-4976-2911-0 (ISBN)
Description
"A beautiful novel" of life and death, past and present, and the thin lines that lie between them (
The Toronto Star).
On a streetcar, on Christmas Day, 1950, clutching the chrome rail in front of him, Martin Radey looks at the woman seated beside him, a stranger, and utters his last words: "I can't breathe." Like millions, billions before him, it is his turn to die.
But death is not what he expected. The journey has only begun. From 1880 to 1950, time happens to the world around him, not to memory, because memory, he discovers, is beyond time, traveling forward with him, shaping the earth, the sky, the heart.
The prequel to the widely celebrated Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life "is an emotionally charged experience that will not soon be forgotten." ( Dallas Morning News)
On a streetcar, on Christmas Day, 1950, clutching the chrome rail in front of him, Martin Radey looks at the woman seated beside him, a stranger, and utters his last words: "I can't breathe." Like millions, billions before him, it is his turn to die.
But death is not what he expected. The journey has only begun. From 1880 to 1950, time happens to the world around him, not to memory, because memory, he discovers, is beyond time, traveling forward with him, shaping the earth, the sky, the heart.
The prequel to the widely celebrated Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life "is an emotionally charged experience that will not soon be forgotten." ( Dallas Morning News)
More details
Person
Terence M. Green is the author of eight books (seven novels and a short story collection); the recipient of a total of nine Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council grants for fiction writing; a two-time World Fantasy Award finalist; and a five-time Prix Aurora Award finalist. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Danish, Polish, and Portuguese. He is profiled in
Contemporary Authors,
The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature,
Canadian Who's Who,
The Dictionary of Literary Biography, and
Books in Canada. He has been praised in the
New York Times, the
San Francisco Chronicle, the
Globe and Mail, the
Toronto Star, the
Ottawa Citizen, and the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His novel
Shadow of Ashland (more than a quarter of a million printed) was selected as a Top 3 Fiction Pick of the Year by the
Edmonton Journal in 1997, and as the Book You Have to Read by
Entertainment Weekly in 2003.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Map of Toronto, circa 1940
- Family Tree Part One
- Family Tree Part Two
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Coda
- About the Author
- Copyright Page
