Gabriel Dumont in Paris

by Jordan Zinovich

Overview

The troubles of 1885 are a topic of enduring fascination. Gabriel Dumont in Paris is a fictional retelling of the events leading up to the Northwest Rebellion, focussing on the thoughts and actions of Metis leader Gabriel Dumont. Jordan Zinovich reconstructs the man from a multiplicity of voices, leaving us to draw our own understanding of Riel's charismatic lieutenant.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780888643216
Publisher:	University of Alberta Press
Publication date:	08/01/1999
Series:	Currents in Canadian Literature Series
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Historian, novelist, and editor Jordan Zinovich was born in Kimberley, British Columbia. He was raised and educated in B.C. and Alberta, where he learned to love the untold stories of Canada’s west. Some of his other books include Battling the Bay and Prospector North, historical biographies set in the opening of the western North, and Cobweb Walking, a volume of poetry. He now lives in New York.

Read an Excerpt

"Nothing I say will help you imagine a buffalo; its vitality; the bellowing rut and wild stampedes and the rank odor of guts when we opened one up-the heat on my arms swimming elbow deep in blood; the peppery satisfying taste of hot raw liver dipped in bile. Every Metis child was born to this. How can you know our loss?"

"As we turned the enemy, I lay hidden behind a small bluff. Across an opening in the trees, I saw a sleigh. I shouted to my men, 'Courage! Let's make these Redcoats jump. I am going to take those sleighs.' A policeman showed his face and my bullet to his head knocked him back in the sleigh. Then I laughed, not because I liked killing, but to encourage my men."

What People are Saying About This

Olive Patricia Dickason

"By viewing the events of 1885 with the eyes of Gabriel and his contemporaries, Jordan Zinovich demonstrates how the historical process includes us all. This is not a retelling in the light of new facts or a new interpretation, but a re-living of a key episode in Canada's growth as a nation.”

Robert Kroetsch

“...At once a rendering of the prairie past and a guidebook into the prairie present. It speaks our love of place, our dislocations, our betrayals, our furious ideals, our fatal disenchantments. Gabriel Dumont himself, making a story, caught in a story, becomes a hero for all of us who cherish this gruff and fragile culture.”

Editorial Reviews

"Zinovich's outstanding story of one of Canada's most elusive figures, Gabriel Dumont, re-imagines our past in ways which reveal deeper dimensions of a familiar story." Ken Tingley, Legacy
"While Zinovich openly invites further debate in the on-going contentious issue of Louis Riel and his execution, he also succeeds in his exploration of Gabriel Dumont by augmenting the 'facts' and lifting out fascinating aspects of Dumont's interior life. He does this partly by setting Dumont beside Riel. There is disturbing violence in this story of Gabriel Dumont, but there is also humour, restraint, mystery, delicacy.... Apart from the substance of Gabriel Dumont in Paris, the book's cover and design, by Alan Brownoff of The University of Alberta Press, are outstanding.... I commend both Jordan Zinovich and his publisher and congratulate them. Gabriel Dumont in Paris: A Novel History is a fine achievement." Audrey Andrews, Author of Be Good, Sweet Maid, in Canadian Ethnic Studies,XII, No. 2, 2000

"…At once a rendering of the prairie past and a guidebook into the prairie present. It speaks our love of place, our dislocations, our betrayals, our furious ideals, our fatal disenchantments. Gabriel Dumont himself, making a story, caught in a story, becomes a hero for all of us who cherish this gruff and fragile culture."
—Robert Kroetsch
"By viewing the events of 1885 with the eyes of Gabriel and his contemporaries, Jordan Zinovich demonstrates how the historical process includes us all. This is not a retelling in the light of new facts or a new interpretation, but a re-living of a key episode in Canada’s growth as a nation."
—Olive Patricia Dickason

From the Publisher