Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

A Finalist for the 2003 Giller Prize

Across a bend of Ontario's Attawan River lies the Island, where, for generations, the Walkers have lived among other mill workers. But in the summer of 1965, with the threat of mill closures looming, the Walkers grapple with their personal crises, just as the rest of the town fights to protect its way of life.

Superbly crafted and deeply moving, this book is at once a love letter to a place, a gripping family saga, and testimony to the emergence of an important new novelist.

John Bemrose’s first novel, The Island Walkers, was a national bestseller, a finalist for The Giller Prize, and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He is also a well-known arts journalist who has published reviews and articles in The Globe and Mail, The National Post, and Maclean’s. His second novel, The Last Woman, was published in 2009. He has also published poetry and written a play, Mother Moon, which was produced by the National Arts Centre. Bemrose was born and raised in Paris, Ontario, a place that has inspired the settings for his fiction, including his latest novel, The River Twice. He lives in Toronto.

John Bemrose's profile page

• Nominated, Giller Prize - Nominee

“Clear-eyed narration and gorgeous description...a profoundly sensitive portrayal of a family's efforts to find its way through the tangled threads of desire and nobility, guilt and love.” —Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor

“Bemrose's poetic touch...finds beauty in obscure corners and grandeur in small victories.” —Baltimore Sun

“As fine as any [novel] you will read this year...Among its pleasures is that which comes from reading a writer with a genuine sense of place.” —New York Sun