A book of voices arising out of the lives of people who populated outport Newfoundland.
Drawing on family recollections, interviews with elders and extensive research in archives and regional museums, The Fetch, Nico Rogers' first book, is a brilliant hybrid—neither a novel nor a collection of short stories. This compelling volume of tales and prose poems contains a broad range of characters. There is the slow-witted girl who has lost her mother and now has only the cow named Fatty for a friend; the hard-bitten captain of a schooner in recoil from the ways of his alcoholic father; the child born premature, swaddled in olive oil-soaked linen, placed in a pan and incubated in an oven. And so on, twenty-eight vignettes in all, all tightly written and highly evocative of outport Newfoundland before Confederation. Funny, tragic, and just.
About the Author :
Nico Rogers is a storyteller and performance artist, and has appeared at writing and folk festivals across the country, as well as on TV and radio. He has taught writing and literature in post-secondary institutions in Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton and now lives in Toronto, where he is working on a novel which will be a thematic continuation of The Fetch.
Review :
Readers will be swept away by this book's strong sense of place, the immediacy of its voices ... a haunting and memorable tribute to the people of outport Newfoundland and a must-read for anyone interested in Atlantic-Canadian history or folklore. ?Laurie Glenn-Norris, New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal
The Fetch's orphans, widows and yearning men will make you cry as they turn themselves inside out on the page. ?Ariel Gordon, Winnipeg Free Press
Set in Pre-Resettlement Bonavista Bay, and gleaned and constructed from interviews and research, these are precise, alluring glimpses into such topics as labour, starvation, sealing, turnip, lust, pride, solace, temper and berrypicking.--Newfoundland Quarterly
What Rogers has done is nothing short of marvelous ... These tales demand reading--Bill Robertson, Saskatoon Star Phoenix
