The Order of Good Cheer

by Bill Gaston

Overview

Indian summer, 1607. Intrepid explorer and map-maker Samuel de Champlain has founded a new and precarious settlement in Annapolis Royal, New France (present-day Nova Scotia). As winter looms, two threats emerge: boredom amongst the men and the deadly sickness scurvy. Champlain hits upon the idea of a moveable feast — an order of "good cheer" — where nobles and men can enjoy good local food, excellent wine, and camaraderie.

Separated by the breadth of a continent and exactly four hundred years is twenty-first-century blue-collar worker Andy Winslow and his friends, whose urban landscape is threatened by encroaching environmental and economic disaster. In alternating narratives, award winning author and master storyteller Bill Gaston bridges the divide across land and time in this illuminating story about survival, love, friendship, and feast.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780887848162
Publisher:	House of Anansi Press
Publication date:	06/01/2009
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.04(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Bill Gaston is the author of several works of fiction. He was the inaugural recipient of the Writers' Trust of Canada Timothy Findley Award, for a distinguished body of work. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Editorial Reviews

...[The Order of Good Cheer is a] daring, big-hearted work.” — Montreal Gazette

“The Order of Good Cheer is a challenging and provocative book...” — Georgia Straight

“...[Gaston] writes with a refreshing ground-level accuracy...[and] takes his readers on a very long and interesting trip through both time and space, without splattering them with ketchup or spilling drinks in their laps. Since this is a novel about food, that's really something.” — Vancouver Review

“...The novel could be viewed as a cousin to David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas...[a] daring, big-hearted work.” — Montreal Gazette

“[Gaston's] descriptions bring people and places vibrantly alive, and his prose shimmers with colour, humour and passion...[his] voice is utterly and thoroughly his own.” — Chronicle Herald

“...extraordinary...one of the most talented writers currently on the Canadian literary scene....The Order of Good Cheer is a feast of nuanced writing, blessed with one of those rare endings that are absolutely perfect. Gaston has crafted a bittersweet ode to friendship, loss, and near-hopelessness that lingers in the mind long after the story has come to a close...” — Winnipeg Free Press

“The writing is wonderful, the characterizations strong...The Order of Good Cheer was difficult to set aside and will be impossible to forget.” — January Magazine

From the Publisher

...[The Order of Good Cheer is a] daring, big-hearted work.

Montreal Gazette

The writing is wonderful, the characterizations strong...The Order of Good Cheer was difficult to set aside and will be impossible to forget.

January Magazine

[Gaston's] descriptions bring people and places vibrantly alive, and his prose shimmers with colour, humour and passion...[his] voice is utterly and thoroughly his own.

Chronicle Herald

The Order of Good Cheer is a challenging and provocative book...

Georgia Straight

...[Gaston] writes with a refreshing ground-level accuracy...[and] takes his readers on a very long and interesting trip through both time and space, without splattering them with ketchup or spilling drinks in their laps. Since this is a novel about food, that's really something.

Vancouver Review

...extraordinary...one of the most talented writers currently on the Canadian literary scene....The Order of Good Cheer is a feast of nuanced writing, blessed with one of those rare endings that are absolutely perfect. Gaston has crafted a bittersweet ode to friendship, loss, and near-hopelessness that lingers in the mind long after the story has come to a close...

Winnipeg Free Press