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Rating: 
Summary: brilliant!
Review: A moving collection of vignettes about life on Prince Edward Island during the Great Depression, as seen through the eyes of a young boy who battled the miseries of starvation and neglect until he was old enough to join the military and escape.
For all of us who only associated P.E.I. with the idyllic works of L.M. Montgomery (of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES fame), this little collection of Gallant's is a very sharp poke in the eye. You are not going to find fond reminiscences of golden summer days and cozy Christmases. John Gallant tells about his worthless father who refused to do any work and a brother with a suspiciously "sore back" who was much the same. There are stories concerning the parish priest who, through his greed and mean spiritedness, made Gallant question if believing in a religion was really worth the effort. Since Heaven, for Gallant, consisted of enough food to eat and a warm place to sleep, why believe in what didn't exist?
Told in simple terms with honesty and very dry humor, this collection will be sure to please short story enthusiasts, as well as anyone interested in Canada and the Great Depression.
Rating:
Summary: a work of love
Review: For the millions of North Americans who are descended from the Atlantic Canada diaspora (Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick) this book is a treasure!A century and a half of subsistence livings wrung from the sea and the land, plus large Celtic families, has ensured a constant flow of people from this area out across the rest of the continent. This is a work of love from a talented son, who put together the stories of his father -- raised in P.E.I. during the depression as a "neglected and starving child" -- into an intensely memorable book. It touches deeply this Prince Edward Island born heart, and speaks to our common human longing for home and rootedness.
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