“Eerie realities permeate fictional coal town”: review
New Glasgow News, February 21, 2014
The New Glasgow News carried a nice précis and review of Frank Macdonald’s (2012) A Possible Madness. Below is an excerpt. You can read the full review here:
“To a Pictou County reader the ghost of Westray lives in Shean. It exists side by side with the ambitious and accommodating politician, the shrewd business interests from away, the hungry players who are groomed for better opportunities, the alcoholics whose services are bought for a bottle and a few bucks, the patently paranoid, the disinterested and the conscientious objectors.”
“It becomes clear that while the people of Shean gnash their teeth over the merits of modernized coal-mining and tourism, global industrialists are far ahead of them, seeing the town only as a convenient staging ground to test dangerous but potentially lucrative new technology. It is brutally clear the interests of Shean, whether pro-business or pro-environment, count for little outside its municipal boundaries.”
A Possible Madness has “a strong sense of place, some vivid characters and revelatory moments.”
For these very reasons, and despite its being a work of fiction, A Possible Madness has been used in university classrooms and book clubs around the region. It was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award.