Consolation - Hardcover

Redhill, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434011797 ISBN 13: 9780434011797

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

As he slips beneath the waves of Toronto's harbour, Professor David Hollis follows in death the man he pursued in the last months of his life, English apothecary J. G. Hallam. One hundred and fifty years earlier, Hallam had been sent by his father to open a shop in the New World, but when that business failed, he became a reluctant partner in a photography firm. In 1856, the company was offered the opportunity to work for the municipal government, and the bleak and ungainly young city took shape before Hallam's lens. But after presenting the photographs in England, Hallam's ship sank in a violent storm on Lake Ontario and the strongbox holding the photographs was lost. The shoreline of the harbour has shifted dramatically over a century and a half, and David Hollis, driven in his pursuit of this important historical record, speculates that the sunken ship containing the photographs is in the landfill where the city's new Union Arena is to be built. With almost no one on his side but his daughter's fiance, John Lewis, Hallam presents his findings, which are met with howls of derision from his colleagues.Three months later, he's dead, and Lewis joins the grieving widow, Marianne, in a furtive, unsettling quest to vindicate her husband. Installed in a hotel overlooking the excavation site where the arena is to stand, they await the moment when a piece of the past reappears that might alleviate the anguish of these civic and private vanishings. Exquisitely crafted and masterfully told, Michael Redhill's haunting new book moves seamlessly between Toronto's past and present, depicting the way time alters the contours of even the things we hold most certain. "Consolation" evokes the mysteries of love and memory, and what suffering the absence of a beloved truly means.

About this title

Review:

"Richly textured ... sumptuously wrought ... The tone is one of sweet melancholy, and the ebbs and flows of loving relationships are acutely rendered. Not only this, but the evocation of [the] era is irresistible" (Daily Telegraph)

"Complex, poetic, heartfelt and most beautifully written" (The Times)

"Absorbing ... Redhill has artistic sense and nerve" (New York Times)

From the Publisher:

A remarkable exploration of the power of place, home and memory, by the acclaimed author of Martin Sloane.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0434011797
• ISBN 13: 9780434011797
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480