A novel about secrets and loss, and mysteries smouldering within mysteries, as the threat of devastating fire looms over a droughtstricken community.
In this blistering summer, the town of Carpenter Creek, and everything south of it to the U.S. border, including Waterton National Park, is in extreme fire danger—as Ray Lemon, editor of a southern Alberta newspaper, knows all too well. His emergency services friend, who Ray has nicknamed The Portent, insists that it’s Ray’s duty to frighten his readers into radical caution. Barbecues, tailpipes, tossed joints, lightning—anything could touch off an inferno.
When Ray was not yet twenty, he inherited the paper from his father after his sudden disappearance—a decades-long absence that became the confounding mystery of Ray’s existence. Now Ray’s oldest friend, Fran, is increasingly angry that he has kept secret the tale of his years in Australia, where he ventured in search of hippie culture soon after his father’s defection. To further complicate matters, the two friends have been called upon to referee a ranch-family feud between the grown children of close friends who both died long before their time. The one thing that is certain is that Ray and Fran are the only two people left on earth capable of sorting it all out.
Acclaimed novelist and beloved raconteur Fred Stenson has written a contemporary novel about the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell those we love or want to love—and the gap between these versions of who we are, where lives take flight or flounder. Set in the stunningly beautiful countryside where the plains meet the Rockies, where the oil industry operates uneasily beside sprawling ranch land, and where a mean dry wind can set the whole world ablaze.
About the Author
Carpenter Creek is Fred Stenson’s tenth book of fiction (twentieth book in all). His first novel, Lonesome Hero, was published by Macmillan of Canada in 1974, when he was 22. He has also written 150 documentary films and videos. For fifteen years, he directed The Wired Writing Studio at The Banff Centre for the Arts. He has been writer-in-residence at colleges, universities and libraries in several parts of Canada. He and two sisters grew up on a mixed farm in southwest Alberta, a short drive from Waterton National Park. His travels have taken him to Ireland, UK, Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, and the western U.S. He has two children and three grandchildren. A lucky life spent with amazing people. For twenty-five years, Fred has been the Wit columnist for Alberta Views Magazine.
Reviews
For The Trade: “One of the best historical novels ever to be written in this country . . . A fantastic entertainment.”
― Globe & Mail
“Stenson’s beautifully laconic style, his precise sense of detail and his meticulous research all combine to make The Trade a mesmerizing read, eloquent and heartbreaking.” — Ottawa Citizen
For The Great Karoo: “A truly magnificent novel by one of Canada’s greatest living writers.” — David Adams Richards, author of The Lost Highway
“Fred Stenson has once again brought the past to shimmering life, this time evoking the hallucinatory experience of war in a foreign land… Stenson paints a vast and damning portrait of war. Dark matter indeed, but a species of transcendent light shows through in the tender feelings men harbour for their horses, in the fierce, unspoken friendships those men forge, and in the life-affirming rush of romantic love. You’ll be tempted to read it in one sitting. Go ahead — the story will be with you long after you close the book.” — Alissa York, author of Effigy
Read an Excerpt
Read an excerpt of Carpenter Creek here:
Carpenter Creek Excerpt
