"Nightsong is a lyrical chapter, reminiscent of Dylan Thomas's Under
Milk Wood, swooping down from the wider view of Wigford to the
particular details of its inhabitants' dreams, secret hopes, and
disappointments. These characters and their stories will linger with
readers." Publishers Weekly, September 2016
a great writer -Daniel Lanois
one of the finest songwriters on the planet... his lyrics [are] every
bit as powerful as the best Dylan, Cohen and Lennon combined. -Ron
Sexsmith
a national treasure -Michael Barclay, Exclaim
he's a stone genius -CBC
Kyp Harness scrapes at the backdrop of reality to reveal the tired, the
broken, the lost and desolate, imbuing their agony with a fine and
desperate dignity and allowing the reader to be swept along as well.
-Mike Blouin, award-winning author of Chase and Haven
Kyp Harness' prose has a unique flow: word and action, thought and thing
are all contiguous and combined in lovely braided sentences. There's
some Joyce splashed around Wigford, a satisfying read. This is a
fantastic book, please just read it. -Tony Burgess, author of Idaho
Winter, finalist for the Trillium Award and author of Pontypool Changes
Everything
Wigford is a small town in rural Southwestern Ontario, home to a cast of
recurring characters: Buzz, a drunk-driving father of two; his wife, who
should have married Bert Walmsley instead; Happy Henry, a devout,
socially inept apostle who loves to play the organ; Elmer, a stroke
survivor.
Wigford Rememberies tells this community's stories through an
impressionistic series of vignettes. The language is inventive,
innovative and exciting, and whether describing mucking out the pig
barn--there in the dust and the sweet smells of grain and straw and the
heavy brown odour of shit so strong it makes you sneeze--or helping a
drunk articulate how to manipulate God's forgiveness--'if I gave my
heart to Jesus--right there on my deathbed the minute before I
died--he'd forgive everything an I'd go up into Heaven and be saved just
as much as the other guy who never did nothin' wrong at all with no
difference?'--Harness wields words with an eye for detail, musicality
and style.
Visceral, reflective and lyrical, Wigford Rememberies is a poetic
evocation of mood and epiphanic realizations, and will resonate with
anyone who has ever confronted suffering, love or the unknowable.
