Transforms the forlorn territory of Newfoundland into a fabulous terrain of tragicomic struggle and loss…. This prodigious, eventful, character-rich book is a noteworthy achievement: a biting, entertaining, and inventive saga—brilliant.”
—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times
Wayne Johnston is a brilliant and accomplished writer, and his Newfoundland—boots and boats, rough politics and rough country, history and journalism—during the wild Smallwood years is vivid and sharp.”
—E. Annie Proulx,
author of The Shipping News and Wyoming Stories
A novel of cavernous complexity that nevertheless doesn’t overwhelm the reader, who can repose in pure narrative without second thoughts … [an] eloquent anti-epic.”
—Luc Sante, The New York Times Book Review
“This splendid, entertaining novel is both a version of David Copperfield transposed to twentieth-century Newfoundland and an evocation of vanished ways of life in a place caught in tumultuous political changes. Rich and complex, it offers Dickensian pleasures.”
—Andrea Barrett,
author of The Voyage of the Narwhal and Ship Fever
“Evokes not only the beautiful, unforgiving subarctic terrain of Newfoundland but also the spirit and people of Smallwood’s times.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Comical, compelling … in the figure of Smallwood’s soulmate-nemesis, Sheilagh Fielding, Johnston has created a boozy, prickly, lancet-tongued seductress who could hold her own against Dorothy Parker.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Gorgeously written…. Immensely readable…. Imagine that John Irving wrote a novel about the life and times of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but focused less on FDR’s politics and more on an unrequited love affair with a fictional female journalist—then you’d have some idea of what Wayne Johnston is up to.”
—The Seattle Times
“Charles Dickens would have greatly admired Johnston’s style and humor…. And the old master would have envied the vivid scenes Johnston draws of Smallwood’s impoverished boyhood.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Brilliantly realized…. There’s an epic quality to The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and it may well be referred to, before long, as the quintessential Newfoundland novel.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
“The Colony of Unrequited Dreams has many things: irony, humor, satire, history, romance. It shows what a very talented writer with a great story to tell can do when he sets his mind to it.”
—The Denver Post
“Johnston writes about Newfoundland like Joyce wrote about Ireland, creating literary gold out of a coarse, common place…. Throughout the book Johnston’s writing never fails either the grandeur or humanity of his subject.”
—Book
“The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an indispensable masterpiece. It reshapes and animates history with luminous verisimilitude. Every page of Wayne Johnston’s stunning novel displays the highest regard for his reader’s intelligence and for the art of writing itself.”
—Howard Norman,
author of The Bird Artist and The Museum Guard
“Johnston reminds us that politics, for all its squalor, is fit material for passion and suspense—and even so, he’s smart enough to let a love story run off with his exceptional book.”
—Thomas Mallon,
author of Dewey Defeats Truman and Henry and Clara