Description:
These stories from Montreal present a gallery of characters, Caribbean immigrants desperate and triumphant, always struggling against the odds, as they make their way through the maze of urban life.
Brief description: H. Nigel Thomas was born in St. Vincent and now lives in Montreal. After a stint as a high school teacher in Montreal, Thomas was for many years a professor of US literature at Université Laval, before retiring. He is the author of three novels, Spirits in the Dark (shortlisted for the QWF Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction), BEHIND THE FACE OF WINTER, and RETURN TO ARCADIA; the story collections How Loud Can the Village Cock Crow and LIVES: WHOLE AND OTHERWISE; and a book of poetry, Moving through Darkness. Thomas has also published two works of nonfiction, From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Fold Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel, and WHY WE WRITE: CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN CANADIAN POETS AND NOVELISTS.
Review Quotes:
"In Thomas' hands the interior monologue becomes a powerful tool for voicing character and experience. Time and again he demonstrates his skill at reproducing the speech patterns of characters with Caribbean origins to mesmerizing effect. . . . the stories contained in Lives Whole and Otherwise are all about shaking one frame or another. H Nigel Thomas gives voice to a hard social reality that refuses the glib formulas of traditional narrative form." --The Rover