The Pagan Nuptials of Julia chronicles the lives of ordinary English-speaking Quebeckers who "did not go the other way" down the 401, a neglected Canadian minority that saw its treasured world sacrificed by statist deceit and disowned with "stricken, evasive looks" even by its own kind.
With a vivid, contrarian insight, Keith Henderson shows us that not all change is even-handed or mending, and that when it embodies "refinement" and "necessary humanity," the Past merits passionate preservation.
Contemplating these at times gothic, always superbly crafted tales, alert readers will find themselves querying their fashionable complacencies while they ponder a vision conservative in the very best of senses — one that revives the classical faith in human bonds and meaning, and prompts us to remember that we are "born into the arms of love."
Reminiscent of the works of Hawthorne, Mansfield, Mann, and Sinclair Ross, Keith Henderson's The Pagan Nuptials of Julia presents the brilliant, interrogative creations of one of Canada's finest "journalists of the soul."

Keith Henderson has published five other novels with DC Books, The Restoration (1992), The Beekeeper (1990), The Roof Walkers (2013), Acqua Sacra (2016), and Sasquatch and the Green Sash (2018), political essays from when he was Quebec correspondent for the Financial Post (Staying Canadian,1997), as well as a prize-winning book of short stories, The Pagan Nuptials of Julia, 2006). He led the Equality Party during the separatist referendum of 1995, taught Canadian Literature at Vanier College for many years, has sat on numerous boards in Anglo-Quebec including ELAN and the AELAQ, and is currently President of The Special Committee for Canadian Unity. He is completing a critical autobiography with special focus on the works of Edith Wharton.

Keith Henderson's profile page

• Winner, Independent Publishers Book Award

"A remarkably erudite collection that displays an impressive versatility."
— The Gazette
"The Pagan Nuptials of Julia takes us from Montreal to rural Italy, where Julia was born.... It's a story that says something profound about the human condition. It feeds the soul.... "
— The Globe and Mail
"This book is an interesting well written collection of stories told from a variety of viewpoints — male, female, young, old, married, single, divorced. "
— The Montreal Review of Books
"As leader of Quebec's Equality Party from 1993 to 2003, Keith Henderson was hardly shy about expressing his views on the rights of English-speaking Quebecers. In The Pagan Nuptials of Julia Henderson shrewdly weaves his political insights into nine fictional tales of Anglos who remained in Quebec to deal with an increasingly difficult situation."
— Concordia University Magazine, December 2005

“A remarkably erudite collection that displays an impressive versatility.”

— The Gazette

“The Pagan Nuptials of Julia takes us from Montreal to rural Italy, where Julia was born.... It’s a story that says something profound about the human condition. It feeds the soul.... ”

— The Globe and Mail

“This book is an interesting well written collection of stories told from a variety of viewpoints — male, female, young, old, married, single, divorced. ”

— The Montreal Review of Books

“As leader of Quebec’s Equality Party from 1993 to 2003, Keith Henderson was hardly shy about expressing his views on the rights of English-speaking Quebecers. In The Pagan Nuptials of Julia Henderson shrewdly weaves his political insights into nine fictional tales of Anglos who remained in Quebec to deal with an increasingly difficult situation.”

— Concordia University Magazine, December 2005