Causeway is Linden MacIntyre’s evocative memoir of his Cape Breton childhood. At once a vibrant coming-of-age story, a portrait of a vanishing way of life and a reflection on fathers and sons, the narrative revolves around the construction of the Canso Causeway that would link the small Cape Breton village of MacIntyre’s childhood to the wide world of the mainland. Shot through with humour, humanity and vivid characters, Causeway is an extraordinary book, a memoir that has set a new standard for the genre.

LINDEN MACINTYRE was the host of Canada’s premiere investigative television show, the fifth estate, for nearly twenty-five years. Born in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, and raised in Port Hastings, Cape Breton, he began his career in 1964 with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald as a parliamentary bureau reporter. MacIntyre later worked at The Journal and hosted CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning before joining the fifth estate. His work on that show garnered an International Emmy, and he has won ten Gemini Awards.

His bestselling first novel, The Long Stretch, was nominated for a CBA Libris Award, while his boyhood memoir, Causeway: A Passage from Innocence, was a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2006 and won both the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award. His second novel, The Bishop’s Man, was a #1 national bestseller and the winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and the CBA Libris Fiction Book of the Year Award. His other novels include Why Men Lie, Punishment and The Only Café. MacIntyre lives in Toronto with his wife, CBC radio host and author Carol Off. They spend their summers in a Cape Breton village by the sea.

Linden MacIntyre's profile page

• Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
• Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction

“More than a historical memoir, Causeway is like a set of lessons on how to write a memoir. Unsentimental, unpretentious, evocative and written in clear rhythmical prose, this book should give pleasure to everyone.” — The Globe and Mail

“Causeway is an honest-to-God writer’s memoir.” — Winnipeg Free Press

“Full of a sweet longing for the happiness he remembered and the smooth confident flow of Gaelic conversation. . . . As long as the island continues to
produce storytellers like MacIntyre, it will never entirely die.”
— Montreal Gazette

“MacIntyre’s novelistic style and the stories of men, dogs, work, mining, liquor, church, politics, and fate are reminiscent of No Great Mischief, by another Cape Bretoner, Alistair MacLeod.” — Quill & Quire

“Causeway explores a world which depicts a certain region of Cape Breton as it was ‘before Canada joined it.’ The book aches with details that are both rational and emotional. . . . MacIntyre is a fine writer.” — Alistair MacLeod, author of No Great Mischief

“A sweet and edgy coming-of-age story that reads like a good conversation over many drinks.” — Ann-Marie MacDonald, author of Fall On Your Knees

“A touching portrayal of a father and son relationship and the pain of leaving home.” — Laura M. Mac Donald, author of The Curse of the Narrows