Bread and Stone

William McLean is an Alberta farm boy seeking the work that he believes God has put him on Earth to do. Returning from World War I in a crisis of conscience, he finds his calling when he is drawn into Winnipeg's labour movement by his army buddy Daniel Eckersley. As unrest mounts and the authorities respond with force, William finds himself in the midst of an upheaval that could mean destitution - or freedom - for all. In Bread and Stone, Allan Weiss skillfully combines the story of one of the most dramatic real events in Canadian history, the Winnipeg General Strike, with the spiritual journey of a young man growing to understand who he is, who he is becoming, and what it is that he must do.

About the Author :
Allan Weiss is a Toronto fiction writer and Professor of English at York University. He was born in Montreal and moved to Toronto to pursue his doctoral studies after completing his BA and MA at Concordia University. He is the author of three story cycles: Living Room (2001), Making the Rounds (2016), and Telescope (2019). Other short stories, both realist and fantastic, have appeared in various anthologies and magazines, including Fiddlehead, Wascana Review, On Spec, and the Tesseracts anthology series. His latest story, A Tartan of Many Colors, was published in the anthology Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People (2020).

Review :
"Allan Weiss is a great storyteller and Bread and Stone is a brilliant, meticulously researched historical novel about the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. It stands with the best of the genre of 'proletarian literature' from the last century, fiction that is working class and radical, told through the eyes of ordinary working people. His writing is compelling and powerful, his characters engaging, the narrative exciting enough to make a great film. The novel also provides critical historical context for this incredibly significant event in Canadian history." - Norman Nawrocki, author of Red Squared Montreal. "In Bread And Stone, Allan Weiss takes a pivotal event in Canadian labour history and expands it into a tense, gripping human drama, while at the same time maintaining the broad background canvas that makes this event so important. Meticulously- researched in keeping with Allan's academic credentials the novel features the coming-of-age of Alberta farm boy William McLean, his experiences and subsequent disillusionment as a soldier in World War One and his proactive participation in the Winnipeg General Strike. A finely-balanced mix of the wide-ranging and the intense, this novel turns history into something personal. -Michael Mirolla, author of Becker's World & Other Stories.