Bøger af Nick Fonda

On a warm August evening in 1905, a 12-year old boy is shot in the back and killed near the Orford Mountain Railway construction site in rural Quebec. The crime is all the more shocking for being the second such murder on a railway in three days. A 14-year old had been killed in nearby Farnham very near an existing rail line.Like the murder in Farnham, the Orford Mountain Railway murder leaves the nearby communities in a state of shock and terror. The killing is puzzling in the extreme and while the police investigation eventually leads to an arrest, it soon becomes clear that the two suspects, while possibly guilty of other crimes, are definitely not the murderers. Fast forward a century to the moment the archivist of a local historical society comes across an unusual document. It is the diary of a teenage girl who chronicled the few weeks she spent with detested relatives near Melbourne Township in August 1905. More by accident than design, she provides clues that help the narrator investigate and solve the century-old case of the murder on the Orford Mountain Railway.

Quebec's Eastern Townships are home to a higher concentration of artists than anywhere else in Canada. With his starting and finishing point being Frederick Coburn (1871--1960), arguably Canada's best-known painter at the peak of his career, author Nick Fonda sets out to revisit his work and provide new insights and facts into Coburn's life and surroundings. To better understand the man, he also introduces other accomplished artists living and working in the same area-not all landscape painters-who have followed quite unusual paths as they responded to the same muse that moved Coburn a century ago. Based on interviews with neighbors and Coburn aficionados and Nick Fonda's own thorough understanding of the milieu in which Coburn grew up, lived, and worked, Hanging Fred and a Few Others is a lively and fascinating story of an important artist but also a reflection on the role of place-the Eastern Townships-in an artist's life. In addition to being a biography of Coburn, Nick Fonda's book provides brief biographical sketches of other artists including Minnie Gill, Denis Palmer, Mary Martin, Stuart Main, France Jodoin, and Kevin Sonmor.

A collection of short stories, this book features a narrative that, while unified by a dark theme, is diverse and surprisingly optimistic. The voices that recount the stories differ significantly, yet all resonate with the clarity of unmistakable truth. Avoiding the kind of graphic violence inherent in dealing with a topic like bullying, this compilation favors qualities such as courage and fortitude, sometimes displayed in the face of intimidating odds. Detailed and compassionate, it even manages to find humor as it tackles this otherwise sinister topic.