Following the fantastic success of his bestselling memoir, Where I
Belong, Great Big Sea front man Alan Doyle returns with a hilarious,
heartwarming account of leaving Newfoundland and discovering Canada for
the first time.
Armed with the same personable, candid style found in his first book,
Alan Doyle turns his perspective outward from Petty Harbour toward
mainland Canada, reflecting on what it was like to venture away from the
comforts of home and the familiarity of the island.
Often in a van, sometimes in a bus, occasionally in a car with broken
wipers using Bob's belt and a rope found by Paddy's Pond to pull them
back and forth, Alan and his bandmates charted new territory, and he
constantly measured what he saw of the vast country against what his
forefathers once called the Daemon Canada. In a period punctuated by
triumphant leaps forward for the band, deflating steps backward and
everything in between--opening for Barney the Dinosaur at an outdoor
music festival, being propositioned at a gas station mail-order bride
service in Alberta, drinking moonshine with an elderly church-goer on a
Sunday morning in PEI--Alan's few established notions about Canada were
often debunked and his own identity as a Newfoundlander was constantly
challenged. Touring the country, he also discovered how others view
Newfoundlanders and how skewed these images can sometimes be.
Heartfelt, funny and always insightful, these stories tap into the
complexities of community and Canadianness, forming the portrait of a
young man from a tiny fishing village trying to define and hold on to
his sense of home while navigating a vast and diverse and wonder-filled
country.
