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The Saints Of Big Harbour
The Saints Of Big Harbour
Jul 13, 2025 7:24 AM

Author:Lynn Coady

The Saints Of Big Harbour

Guy Boucher, a fatherless teenager oppressed by the boredom and poverty of rural Nova Scotia, is dominated by his monstrous uncle, Isadore - alcoholic, capriciously violent and preternaturally vital. Isadore, who is permitted to board with Guy and his mother in exchange for the use of his red pick-up truck, is determined to make a man of Guy by forcing him to drink and play hockey.

Guy dreams that access to the truck will be enough to attract a girlfriend from nearby Big Harbour. But when an awkward courtship turns sour, Guy touches off a sluggish tumult of violence fuelled by malice, booze and suffocating ennui.

Reviews

Sharply written, intelligently layered... It's themes are all dealt with in impressive detail

—— Guardian

A brilliant new voice in Canadian literature

—— David Adams Richards

Rich and vibrant... Brilliantly written... In Isadore, Coady has created a memorable character. She is a rare talent

—— Ireland on Sunday

Coady's achievement here in depicting small-town rumour as an almost elemental force is matched by the complexities of her character-making and by a rare restraint and control

—— Time Out

Catches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed. Quietly compulsive and finally moving

—— Times Literary Supplement

A heart-stoppingly moving story... Murakami is, without a doubt, one of the world's finest novelists

—— Glasgow Herald

Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around

—— Time Out

Norwegian Wood . . . not only points to but manifests the author's genius

—— Chicago Tribune

An intimate and dark story... A beautifully introspective novel that made me feel all the emotions

—— Cosmopolitan

Murakami must already rank among the world's greatest living novelists

—— Guardian

Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility

—— Guardian

Vintage Murakami [and] easily the most erotic of [his] novels

—— Los Angeles Times Book Review

[A] treat...Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done

—— Baltimore Sun

Murakami's most famous coming of age novel of love, loss and longing

—— Dazed and Confused

Catches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed.

—— Times Literary Supplement

[A] treat . . . Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done.

—— The Baltimore Sun

One of the most poignant and evocative novels I have ever read

—— Palantinate

Poignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates heartbreak and loss of faith

—— Sunday Times
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