David Adams Richards takes us behind his gun and into the Canadian
forest for his most powerful work of non-fiction yet.
In his brilliant non-fiction, David Adams Richards - first and foremost
one of Canada's greatest and best-beloved novelists - has been writing a
kind of memoir by other means. Like his previous titles Lines on
Water, about his pursuit of angling, and Hockey Dreams, about the
game his disabled body prevented him from playing, Facing the Hunter
explores the meaning of a sport and the way in which it touches lives,
not least that of the author. And as with God Is, his recent book
about his faith, it is also an impassioned defense of a set of values
and a way of life that Richards believes are under attack.
Lovers of David Adams Richards' novels will be fascinated and
enlightened to note the interplay between his former life as a keen
hunter - he hunts less and less these days, as he explains - and the
narratives and characters of his fiction. But this is also a perfect
starting point for anyone coming new to Richards. The storytelling in
this book, the evocation of the Canadian wild and those who venture into
it, the sheer power of the prose, show a great writer at the height of
his powers.
