| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Book Reviews From our Archives |
April 2004 |
The Long Run by Leo Furey, Key Porter Books, soft cover, 368 pages, $24.95
By Alidė Kohlhaas
The list of writers coming out of Newfoundland is getting longer, very fast. Through them we get to know the island province better every time we read yet a new author's book, or the latest from an established one. Just out is The Long Run by first-time novelist Leo Furey, who previously has published only poetry and short stories. It may be a first novel, but Furey writes like a seasoned author, who knows how to shape scenes, create vivid images, and tell an absorbing tale cleanly and truthfully about life in an orphanage 44 years ago.
Oh, you may say, not another book about nuns and monks, about children treated with total disrespect by those in charge of them. Well, yes, it is, but it is a story worth reading to help us understand how things can happen that we wish did not exist. Furey, who perhaps draws on some of his own life as an orphan raised by Jesuits, gives us a tale that is sad, yet magical, despairing, yet full of hope. It is about friendship and loyalty under circumstances that seem hardly conducive to the formation of either. Yet, Furey manages to make us believe that good things can happen under bad circumstances.
The storyteller is Aiden Carmicheal, the only real orphan among a group of boys at The Mount Kildare Orphanage, who have formed a secret brotherhood, the KilDare Klub. They adopted their motto, Poculum Semi Penum: the glass half-full, from Rags, the only . . .
To Read the full article, go to our ABOUT US page and click on Contact to request the item.
Copyright © 2004-9 CamKohl Arts Productions