• Reading age: 16 to 18

A coming of age story about Roddie Gillies and his guardian and grandfather Calum, who is one of the last remaining Gaelic speakers in the once-proud mining town of Shean. A quiet and stoic man, Calum Gillies and his aging friends illuminate for us the changing world around them: the loss of the coal mines, the labour strife and lean years endured, the religious parochialism that divides families and communities and, most important, a disappearing language. The setting is Cape Breton; the themes of cultural and rural change and decline are universal.

Frank Macdonald is the award-winning author of A Forest for Calum (CBU Press 2005) and A Possible Madness (CBU Press 2011), both long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and both finalists for an Atlantic Book Award. A long-time and award-winning columnist, Macdonald is also an accomplished writer of short stories, drama, poetry and songs. His humorous, often satirical columns in the Inverness Oran have twice been anthologized; Assuming I’m Right in 1990 became a stage production that has toured Nova Scotia and elsewhere in Canada. His play Her Wake won Best Canadian Play at the Liverpool International Theatre Festival in 2010 and, also in 2010, he authored T.R.’s Adventure at Angus the Wheeler’s (CBU Press), a children's book, illustrated by Virginia McCoy. Frank lives in Inverness, Cape Breton. A new novel, Tinker and Blue is due for publication in the fall of 2014.

Frank Macdonald's profile page

• Short-listed, Atlantic Book Award
• Long-listed, IMPAC Dublin Literary Award