In 1982, From a High Thin Wire introduced a powerful new voice into Canadian fiction. Twenty years later, Joan Clark, a powerhouse in Canadian fiction, re-edited her debut collection from the perspective of a more mature writer — an unusual feat for most writers.

The ten frank yet subtle fictions in this collection are loosely based on Joan Clark's own life. Like Emily, a character who recurs in several stories, Clark left Cape Breton for Alberta as a young woman, only to struggle later with her sense of not quite belonging. Shortly after its publication, William French wrote in The Globe and Mail, "[Clark has] that admirable ability to peel away the skin and let us see all the complex influences that intersect to make a particular woman act as she does... She has a fine sense of the infinite possibilities of life that are somehow never realized because of the limitations of human nature."

Having lived in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, and Newfoundland, Joan Clark brought and still brings an intimate knowledge of many parts of Canada to her writing. In "God's Country," Emily feels compelled to return from Calgary to Harbour Mines, Cape Breton, where she rages against the "eye of God" that has reduced the miner's son she once loved to a mute old man. "Her Father's Daughter" finds the teenaged Emily confusing her affection for her lonely father with her own budding sexual longings. "Historical Fiction," a comic allegory of university life, imagines first-year virgins guarded in their dorm by a witch with a cat named Freud, and in the title story, two sisters come back "from away" to bury their mother, whom they recall as a small bird, "singing from a high, thin wire."

Told from the perspective of women at different ages, the stories in From a High Thin Wire explore how childhood experiences can sometimes shape adult choices. They also showcase the genius of the accomplished writer Joan Clark would become.

Joan Clark is one of Canada's most distinguished writers. She was born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, grew up in Sydney Mines and in Sussex, New Brunswick, and lived for twenty years in Alberta. There, she began her literary career as a children's author and, with Edna Alford, founded Dandelion, Alberta's first literary magazine. Since the mid-1980s, she has made her home in St. John's, Newfoundland. In 1991, Clark received the prestigious Marian Engel Award. In addition to Swimming Toward the Light, she is the author of three novels. The first, The Victory of Geraldine Gull, won the Canadian Authors' Association Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Books in Canada First Novel Award. Eriksdotter was a fictional account of the voyage to Finland led by Freydis, daughter of Erik the Red. Her most recent novel, Latitudes of Melt, is a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Caribbean and Canada region, and is a recent nominee for the international IMPAC Award.

Joan Clark's profile page

"Delectable tales of family life, tension, love and resolution, focusing on how childhood experiences shape adult lives."

<i>Globe and Mail</i>

"The network of vulnerabilities and capabilities that define us is at the heart of [From a High Thin Wire] . . . Clark's emphasis on the determination and self-preservation of children imbues these stories of family secrets with a sense of tenderness and empowerment."

<i>Atlantic Books Today</i>