Jack Hodgins was born and raised on Vancouver Island. He
taught Creative Writing at a number of Canadian universities, and
retired from the University of Victoria in 2002.
He is the author of seven novels, including The Invention of the
World; The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne, winner of the Governor
General’s Award; The Macken Charm; Broken Ground, winner of the
Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction; and Distance; and three books of
short stories, Spit Delaney’s Island, a finalist for the Governor
General’s Award; The Barclay Family Theatre; and Damage Done by the
Storm. He is also the author of A Passion for Narrative: A Guide
for Writing Fiction.
Hodgins has been awarded the Canada-Australia Prize, among many
others, has received three honorary degrees, and has been elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
“Without equivocation, Distance is the best novel of the year, an
intimate tale of fathers and sons with epic scope and mythic
resonances.… A masterwork from one of Canada’s
too-little-appreciated literary giants.”
–Vancouver Sun
“A glorious, funny, redemptive look at the losses of faith we all
suffer as we grow older and our need to still try to hold on to
what matters.”
–David Adams Richards
“It is, simply, a fundamentally human tale stunningly told.… It’s
funny and touching, with a hard-earned sentimentality that rings
utterly true.”
–National Post
“[Distance has] a universal theme that will resonate with readers
everywhere.… Hodgins is an expert storyteller. His descriptions of
Australia’s harsh, magnificent outback are as compelling as his
view of Vancouver Island. Distance is a terrific read.…”
–London Free Press
“Jack Hodgins’s Distance seems to pull all of his extraordinary
range of experience together into one maddening, masterful whole.…
By turns harrowing and hilarious.… A beguiling combination of the
highly unlikely and the inevitable – mirroring the strange alchemy
of real life.… Hodgins has a rare gift for creating characters at
once familiar and larger than life.… Hodgins continues to live up
to his billing as one of the finest
–Vancouver Sun
“Hodgins’s stories have always displayed a remarkable energy of
language and invention. His style here is supple, natural,
familiar. This is a highly skilled and experienced writer.…[Hodgins
has] a master’s effortless evocations of place, West Coast and
antipodean.”
–Greg Hollingshead, Globe and Mail
“Jack Hodgins takes the traditional themes of a quest for identity
and relationships and creates refreshing insights.… Hodgins
presents the ordinary in an extraordinary way.…”
–Winnipeg Free Press
“Distance is a masterful blend of humour and seriousness, and of
the ugly and the beautiful. Hodgins brings an inventiveness to what
might have been a po-faced family saga in less innovative hands.
It’s this quality – the freshness of the characters and narrative –
as well as the depth of feeling in the novel that makes Hodgins’s
reputation so well-deserved.”
–Uptown Magazine
“An often hilarious, bittersweet romp.…”
–Ottawa Citizen
“It is a quest that shimmers with surrealistic and yet fully
believable incidents.”
–Toronto Star
Ask a Question About this Product More... |