For David Adams Richards, blood ties is not merely a figure of speech, but an assertion of the reality of life in small-town Canada, where blood ties people in countless, almost unknowable ways to friends, community, and landscape. The lives of three generations of MacDurmots form a Miramichi Valley family portrait that is beguiling, insightful, witty, and tender. Employing dazzling angles of vision and fast-shifting perspectives, Richards captures the inner lives of his characters with sympathy and understanding.

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David Adams Richards was born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, in 1950. He has published ten acclaimed novels, including the award-winning Miramichi trilogy – Nights Below Station Street, winner of the 1988 Governor General’s Award; Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace (1990), winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award; and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1993), winner of the Thomas Raddall Award – Hope in the Desperate Hour (1996), The Bay of Love and Sorrows (1998), and, most recently, Mercy Among the Children (2000), co-winner of the prestigious Giller Prize. In 1993, Richards received the Canada-Australia Prize.

Richards has also published three non-fiction books, most recently the Governor General’s Award-winning fishing memoir Lines on the Water (1998), and has written Gemini Award-winning screenplays for the CBC-TV adaptations of his novels For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down and Nights Below Station Street. “Small Gifts,” his original screenplay for CBC-TV, won a Gemini Award and the New York International Film Festival Award for Best Script.

Richards now lives in Toronto with his wife, Peggy, and their two sons.


From the Hardcover edition.

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