The Dominion of Wyley McFadden: A Novel - Hardcover

Gardiner, Scott; Badami, Anita Rau

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067931041X ISBN 13: 9780679310419

Publisher: Random House of Canada Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

An eccentric ex-fertility doctor's quest to redress geo-zoological discrimination in Canada takes an unexpected twist when he meets up with a mysterious hitchhiker.

After months of painstaking preparation, Wyley McFadden is finally ready to carry out an outlandish scheme. In what looks remarkably like an ordinary camper van, McFadden is transporting a secret cargo -- one he's been accumulating for the better part of a year -- from Toronto to Alberta. But just past the town of Wawa, off the eastern flank of Lake Superior, in the midst of miles and miles of aspen and conifer, he spots a girl in a tennis outfit on the side of the road. Hopping from one foot to the other, bending in oddly rhythmic intervals and waving her arms, she appears to be performing some exotic dance. But as McFadden gets closer, he realizes she is being eaten alive by mosquitoes and black flies, and he slows to pick her up.

Fearful, starving and exhausted, the girl doesn't seem to know where she's headed and refuses to explain how she came to be hitchhiking in the middle of the bush. She wards off McFadden's questions by asking him about his own past. But once McFadden has revealed his secrets, including the purpose of his peculiar mission, the girl can no longer avoid telling him her own shocking and terrifying story.

By turns playful and disturbing, The Dominion of Wyley McFadden is a daring first novel full of surprises.

About this title

Product Description

Book by Gardiner, Scott

Review

"A rich, dark and highly accomplished debut." --"Ottawa Citizen"
"Gardiner brings together many disparate subjects, including the legal entrapment of rats...the human fertility industry...sexual victims, what it is to be Canadian, Quebec separatism and Alberta's idiosyncratic politics." --"The Toronto Star"
"[Gardiner's] wry descriptions of motels, diners, truckstops and the eccentrics who inhabit them evoke Steinbeck in his hard-travelling days." --"The Globe and Mail
"""The Dominion of Wyley McFadden "is a first novel but it sure doesn't feel like one. Gardiner's writing is tight and sure.... The reason the novel works is because Gardiner has Wyley's voice exactly rigth; he was born to talk and his story feels like something you would expect from W.O. Mitchell.... A promising novel.... Wyley McFadden, the hero of this, Scott Gardiner's first novel is a man with a mission...Gardiner has a fine sense of atmostphere, whether it is in the camper or in a truckstop restaurant." --"Edmonton Journal"

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House of Canada Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 067931041X
• ISBN 13: 9780679310419
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 337