The Island Walkers John Bemrose by John Bemrose 9780719568176, 071956817X instant download after payment.

A man has to choose between his allegiance to his friends or the advancement of his career, in John Bemrose’s tightly-knit family drama.

For generations, the Walkers have lived on the Island, a small, working-class mill town beside Ontario's Attawan River. But in the summer of 1965, their peace is shattered. When a union organiser comes to town, Alf Walker is forced to choose between loyalty to his friends and advancement up the company ranks. His decision threatens to overwhelm not only his own life but also his family’s.

"In a finely wrought first novel, Maclean’s journalist Bemrose asks probing questions about loyalty as he chronicles the terrible year that destroys a Canadian mill town... From a writer to be watched: a sobering reminder of the costs of change."  -  Kirkus Reviews

"A deeply atmospheric debut from John Bemrose. It stands for unspoken emotion, stoicism, and occasionally contentment ... Bemrose's prose is elegant, his images well chosen ... Existential themes of endurance and anxiety are subtly woven into a languid narrative which is at the same time robust enough to examine issues of class, passion, betrayal and disintegration."   -   Literary Review

John Bemrose is not a prolific novelist: The Island Walkers, a best-seller in his native Canada, was followed by a second novel, the Last Woman, in 2009 but, since then, nothing. He is a respected arts journalist, a teacher of ‘Creative Expression and Society’, and has written a play, Mother Moon, two volumes of poetry, and several radio programmes.