Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist
Part literary Western and part historical mystery, Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize winner Ridgerunner is now available as a paperback.
November 1917. William Moreland is in mid-flight. After nearly twenty years, the notorious thief, known as the Ridgerunner, has returned. Moving through the Rocky Mountains and across the border to Montana, the solitary drifter, impoverished in means and aged beyond his years, is also a widower and a father. And he is determined to steal enough money to secure his son’s future.
Twelve-year-old Jack Boulton has been left in the care of Sister Beatrice, a formidable nun who keeps him in cloistered seclusion in her grand old house. Though he knows his father is coming for him, the boy longs to return to his family’s cabin, deep in the woods. When Jack finally breaks free, he takes with him something the nun is determined to get back — at any cost.
Set against the backdrop of a distant war raging in Europe and a rapidly changing landscape in the West, Gil Adamson’s follow-up to her award-winning debut, The Outlander, is a vivid historical novel that draws from the epic tradition and a literary Western brimming with a cast of unforgettable characters touched with humour and loss, and steeped in the wild of the natural world.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781487009038 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | House of Anansi Press |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2022 |
| Pages: | 456 |
| Sales rank: | 435,721 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.80(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
William Moreland kept moving south. If the moon was bright he walked all night, wading through dry prairie grass. He was alone and carried his meagre belongings on his back. It was November and snow clung to the hollows and shadows, but that snow was old, dry, delicate as meringue. He had come down the leeward side of the Rockies and had descended into the rolling grassland that runs from Alberta all the way into Montana. Having left the only real home he had ever known, he was looking for the border.Cold as the days were, the sun was intense. Every noon he boiled in his coat and every night he lay shivering on the frigid ground and whined like a dog. After four days and nights, his feet were very bad. He suspected they were bloody by now but he couldn’t bring himself to pull off the boots and look.This was open country. To the east, long grass and low trees all the way to the horizon, and to the west, the land bled into the cloud-like silhouette of the mountains. Days ago he had lost sight of the ranges he called home, and now he paced alongside peaks he remembered dimly from long ago, when he was a younger man, a line of only half-familiar shapes, the faces of acquaintances. He’d stolen everything he could from a ranger’s station outside Banff, including a knapsack, a hatchet, matches, and a blanketcoat with ROCKY MTNS PARK stencilled across the shoulder blades and STN 153 on the chest. He’d found nothing useful for hunting. No gun, not even a knife.The jerky he’d been eating began to fume right through the canvas of his knapsack and sicken him as he walked. Holding the bag to his belly he clawed through it, dropping behind him the last strips of meat. Then the reeking square of oilcloth in which they had been wrapped fluttered down to settle on a tuft of grass like a tiny umbrella. He took out the hatchet and considered dropping it as well, to get rid of the weight, but couldn’t open his hand. The hatchet had great utility, so he slid it back into his bag. He was god-almighty thirsty and dreamed as he walked, dreamed of a river, of drinking gallons of water from that cold river.One afternoon he came upon a gully packed with young trees which turned out to be mostly dry, but he dug down and sipped at a muddy pool. Then he rolled onto his side under the cover of shrubs and slept hard. When he rose a few hours later it was getting on to dark and he was stiff and trembling.That night he found himself on the road he had been looking for. He followed it until he was standing, as planned, outside the little guard hut at the Sweetgrass border crossing between Alberta and Montana. He stood by the lightless window and swayed on numb legs. A bright coin of a moon overhead and no wind at all. The world was utterly still, so quiet he could hear his own ears humming. William Moreland stood like an idiot before the hut and waited for the guard. He stared about with hollow eyes and slowly came to the conclusion that he should probably do something.Beyond the hut was a small gabled house and an unoccupied corral. There was a motorcar up on blocks by the kitchen door, but no lights to be seen anywhere. Moreland tried to call out with his dry throat but all that came out was a thin hiss; his first attempt to speak in more than a week. The applicant to cross over simply waited there, as he should, trying to either speak to authority, or call for service, but could make no sound at all, while the guard slumbered somewhere out of sight.A barn owl melted out of the dark and alighted on a gable of the house. They gazed unblinking at each other until the owl tilted off and moved without sound to the west. The absurdity of the situation was not lost on Moreland: this was after all the border between two countries. But all around him was a sea of grass and rolling land and wind and animals and dust and seeds that flowed this way and that across the imagined line. A decade and a half earlier he would not have stopped, nor intended to stop, nor have approached the crossing station at all. He would not have given it the slightest thought, but gone his own, quiet, solitary way, neither wild nor domesticated, just alone. But now he had been so long among people he’d forgotten that part of himself. So it came to him very slowly that the natural world, having long ago defined its own precincts and notions of order, was simply waiting for him to become unstuck. He cupped his face and pressed it to the thin glass. In the darkness of the hut he saw a wooden counter and a high stool. He wandered round to the rear and pulled open the door. Inside he found a shelf under the counter on which stood a few romance books, a clean plate and a fork, long-dead bees and bits of bee, and below that, bolted to the floor, a small metal box. On top lay a heavy padlock, twisted open, and the key was stuck in it. He gathered the padlock into his fist, lifted the lid of the box, and let it all sag to the floor. Moreland stood for a long time looking down at the revolver. An army model, Colt single action. There were a few spare rounds in the box, some of which didn’t match the gun but seemed to have been put there for tidy housekeeping. He considered taking the pistol, but in the end he shut the lid of the box, put the padlock back on top, shut the door to the hut, and left everything as it had been. He looked across the road at the blank windows of the little house and went back out into the night, moving south, always south, wading through a vast nothingness of grass. An ocean of grass.
What People are Saying About This
In Ridgerunner, Gil Adamson manages a balancing act of beauty and violence, humour and heartbreak. She can write about anything: a nun’s madness, a twelve-year-old boy’s cooking talents, the way a horse moves through a cold forest. How it feels to be held on your mother’s lap, how it feels to jump off a moving train, how it feels to keep the people you’ve lost alive in your mind. The novel is vivid, beautiful, and fully alive.
In Gil Adamson’s Ridgerunner we meet thirteen-year-old Jack Boulton, whose quest — perhaps foolish, certainly dangerous — is to be reunited with his only living family member, his father. A beautiful and moving novel about the durability of family ties, Ridgerunner is a brilliant literary achievement, and in Jack Boulton, Adamson has created one of the most vividly rendered children you will ever encounter in fiction. I loved every page of it.
Gil Adamson understands the pain and the necessary beauty of our connection with other people better than anyone. Ferocious, entirely authentic, funny, and tragic, Ridgerunner is a wild adventure spun in exalted prose: the book I’ve been wanting to read for years.
Ridgerunner is a spectacular novel.
PRAISE FOR GIL ADAMSON AND RIDGERUNNER
Winner, Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
Finalist, Scotiabank Giller Prize
National Bestseller
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year
A CBC Best Book of the Year
An Apple Best Book of the Year
A Kobo Best Book of the Year
#1 Loan Stars Best of the Brightest
“The long-awaited sequel to Gil Adamson’s hit The Outlander moves the action forward a decade, returning the thirteen-year-old son of the original protagonists to a forested land into which prisoners of the First World War are now hewing roads. The proximity of this new type of outlaw presents an existential threat to young Jack, who takes refuge in his parents’ abandoned shack with a price on his head after escaping the toxic hypocrisies of ‘civilization.’ Drawing richly on both the Western and on gothic fiction, Adamson evokes a mythic landscape to frame the question: how is it possible to live a good life, when obedience to man-made laws is so at odds with love, loyalty, and respect for the natural world?” — Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury Citation
“Gil Adamson’s Ridgerunner sinks readers into a Wild West never before seen in an adventure as sprawling and impeccably rendered as the land itself — a scrupulously researched, evocative landscape that shapes the spaces, both interior and exterior, of those who live there as well as the dangerous ties that bind them. Through the eyes of an infamous thief and the twelve-year-old son for whom he is searching, Adamson explores notions of good and evil as ubiquitous as gun smoke and just as nebulous, along with the reminder that all which is fought for comes at a cost.” — Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury Citation
“Part literary Western, part historical mystery, it’s a vivid story that grabs you by the eyeballs on page one.” — Globe and Mail
“Ridgerunner is truly magnificent. It hearkens back to when novels were generous and ambitious, big-shouldered and big-hearted. Gil Adamson writes worlds utterly unto their own.” — Robert Olmstead, award-winning author of Coal Black Horse and Savage Country
“In Gil Adamson’s Ridgerunner we meet thirteen-year-old Jack Boulton, whose quest — perhaps foolish, certainly dangerous — is to be reunited with his only living family member, his father. A beautiful and moving novel about the durability of family ties, Ridgerunner is a brilliant literary achievement, and in Jack Boulton, Adamson has created one of the most vividly rendered children you will ever encounter in fiction. I loved every page of it.” — Michael Redhill, Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author of Bellevue Square
“Gil Adamson understands the pain and the necessary beauty of our connection with other people better than anyone. Ferocious, entirely authentic, funny, and tragic, Ridgerunner is a wild adventure spun in exalted prose: the book I’ve been wanting to read for years.” — Marina Endicott, award-winning author of Good to a Fault and The Difference
“[The characters] are so real, the time and place so convincing, and most importantly, the story captivating to the core.” —Jon Mayes, Advance Reading Copy
“I have just finished reading Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson, a novel that left me deeply satisfied and savouring the experience of reading a really good book . . . A great story and a wonderfully written novel.” — Metro North Bay-Nippissing
“Adamson writes with a sly wit and a deep insight into her characters and the natural world but, more significantly, into how the characters and the natural world interact, shaping and being shaped by one another . . . Everything packs a significant punch and draws the reader into the novel’s world with a startling immediacy.” — Quill & Quire
“Striking . . . Once again, Adamson’s powers as a poet weave her characters deeply into the natural world.” — Georgia Straight
“Rich and exciting . . . delightful, sinewy language that takes time with the details of the moment, of humour and whimsy . . . Adamson’s writing soars.” — Hamilton Review of Books
PRAISE FOR GIL ADAMSON AND THE OUTLANDER
Winner, Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award
Winner, Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing
Winner, ReLit Award
Winner, Drummer General’s Award
Finalist, Trillium Book Award
Finalist, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
Finalist, CBC Canada Reads
A Globe and Mail Book of the Year
“Gil Adamson’s first novel bolts off the opening page . . . An absorbing adventure from a Canadian poet and short story writer who knows how to keep us enthralled . . . A strikingly pensive novel, anchored by the stark beauty of its setting and the harsh wisdom of its narrator . . . Adamson is as captivating with descriptions of vast mountain ranges as she is with the smaller calamities . . . Her story will unsettle your dreams just the same.” — Washington Post
“The Outlander, a strikingly good first novel by the Canadian poet Gil Adamson . . . reads like a pastiche Western with elements of supernatural grotesquerie out of Stephen King or even The X-Files . . . The author writes well on the supernatural chill of the Canadian outback at nightfall.” — Spectator
“Striking, thoughtful, full of unexpected twists, The Outlander is that rare delight: a novel that is beautifully written yet as gripping as any airport page-turner . . . Adamson, a Toronto-based poet, must possess either an impressive collection of reference books or a powerful imagination — or both . . . This is a serious, literary book that moves far beyond genre or gender stereotypes.” — Guardian
“A gorgeous surprise of a book . . . Stylish and compelling, this novel about a woman’s picaresque flight from and toward justice is both elegant in shape and exquisitely written. A powerful and wonderful imagination blossoms here.” — Globe and Mail
“Throughout the novel, Adamson’s keen eye for detail and mastery of language are much in evidence in her descriptions of the natural surroundings.” — Winnipeg Free Press
“The prose style of The Outlander is rich with natural details and metaphors. These descriptive ingredients are like cornstarch, serving to thicken the narrative and impart a glaze-like surface to the main dish. Because of its strong narrative line . . . and Adamson’s true poet’s eye for metaphors and details that work, The Outlander is a superior example of the [Gothic] genre.” — Toronto Star
“Adamson’s writing is superb.” — Maclean’s
“Impeccably shaped, wonderfully written . . . pure aesthetic beauty . . . A picaresque tour de force.” — Calgary Herald
“The Outlander is a riveting tale of a woman’s thirst for freedom.” — Entertainment Weekly
“One of those books so gorgeous in the writing that you simultaneously can’t wait to read what happens next and want to savour the beauty of the writing.” — Herald Tribune
“For readers who want a cracking good story with unforgettable characters engaged in tension-filled activities, and told with a superlative richness of language and a lushness of imagery, Gil Adamson’s novel, The Outlander, is it. Her widow, Mary Boulton, and Bonny, her Reverend, are the ideal stuff and stuffings of legends.”— January Magazine
“As novels go, The Outlander should qualify for Great Canadian status . . . Described by author Gil Adamson herself as ‘literary gothic western,’ The Outlander is perhaps the only book of this genre, but it seems at home among such Canadian classics as Susanna Moodie’s Roughing it in the Bush [and] Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace.” — Fast Forward Weekly
“Mary Boulton is one of the most memorable characters in Canadian literature in years.” — Nuvo Magazine
“Gil Adamson has chiselled her characters, polished every word, and turned The Outlander into something magical . . . Adamson’s characters are fully formed, described with nuances and details that make us feel that we really know them. And her writing is beautiful — poetic, descriptive, lyrical . . . This is a book that lingers in the mind long after the final page has been read.” — Guelph Mercury
“In the tradition of Guy Vanderhaeghe, this is a dark novel with a long finish. It should age well.” — Sun Times
“This uncommon first novel by Gil Adamson combines a thrilling adventure story with polished literary technique.” — Canadian Literature
“This is an old-fashioned adventure story — with a dark fairy-tale element.” — Financial Times
“Adamson is an impressive stylist.” — Quill & Quire
“[A] compelling debut . . . Lean prose, full-bodied characterization, memorable settings and scenes of hardship all lift this book above the pack.” — Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“The Outlander deserves to be read twice, first for the plot and the complex characters which make this a page-turner of the highest order, and then a second time, slowly, to savour the marvel of Gil Adamson’s writing. This novel is a true wonder.” — Ann Patchett, PEN/Faulkner Prize–winning author of Bel Canto
“A remarkable first novel, full of verve, beautifully written, and with all the panache of a great adventure.” — Michael Ondaatje, Man Booker Prize–winning author of The English Patient
“Gil Adamson’s The Outlander is, simply enough, a superb novel, and one senses in the fine writing the potential, or perhaps the eventuality, of a major writer. The frayed material of the North American West is rendered in astonishingly fresh light. The Outlander is also suspenseful to a degree that you are often in a state of physical unrest, a condition only occasioned by first-rate fiction.” — Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall
“[A] great read — a masterful combination of story and prose style.” — David Wroblewski, author of Oprah’s Book Club pick The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
“This remarkable novel opens at full gallop and never slows. Adamson has seamlessly merged a compelling narrative with poetic language to create a work that is full of beauty and heart and wonder.” — Ron Rash, author of PEN/Faulkner Prize finalist Serena
Ridgerunner is truly magnificent. It hearkens back to when novels were generous and ambitious, big-shouldered and big-hearted. Gil Adamson writes worlds utterly unto their own.
[The characters] are so real, the time and place so convincing, and most importantly, the story captivating to the core.
