My Famous Evening

February 2, 2004
Norman shares his decades-long love affair with Nova Scotia in this latest addition to the National Geographic Directions series. Having traveled to the island in 1979 for work on a documentary film script, the author of The Bird Artist
and The Northern Lights
returns over the years, collecting myths and memories. In the book's first section, Norman relives the wanderlust of a young village woman, Marlais Quire, through the 1923 letters she writes to her sister. Enraptured with Joseph Conrad's work, Quire follows the writer to New York against her husband's wishes and her own better judgment. Quire never meets Conrad, but the struggle with her controlling husband and her literary passions lends insight to Nova Scotian smalltown life in the early 20th century. Later, Norman shares a number of stories about forerunners, eerie omens of tragedy well known to seafaring communities: "Forerunners, it seems to me, are examples of belief naturally infused with melancholy." Norman's love of bird-watching leads him to another folktale, concerning a mythic creature who protects locals from a troublesome bird that stirs up dangerous weather for oceangoers. Through his aviary interest, Norman also forges a friendship with Sandra Barry, a fellow bird-watcher and expert on the life of poet Elizabeth Bishop, who, as a child, was sent to live with her grandparents in Nova Scotia. The two retrace Bishop's steps: "I had wanted to sit all night in the kitchen of Elizabeth Bishop's house, candles lit, conversation between and Sandra a kind of séance, bringing Miss Bishop into the present." Norman's collection is an out-of-the-ordinary pastiche of personal recollections and historical sketches. Map not seen by PW
.

March 15, 2004
Norman writes delectably atmospheric novels set in the snowy and mysterious reaches of Canada, such as " The Haunting of L." (2002), and he now pays tribute to the landscape he loves the most, that of Nova Scotia, where "the distance between unconscious and conscious is scarcely noticeable." Several passions shape these gorgeously evocative, idiosyncratic, and witty musings. One is Norman's ardor for birds. Another is his keen interest in folklore, which led to his once scouring the region for stories about forerunners, that is, signs of impending disasters, as well as tales about the Mi'kmaq hero Glooskap. And, finally, there's his abiding love for literature. This inspires him to profile a freelance scholar devoted to chronicling poet Elizabeth Bishop's Nova Scotia childhood and to tell the astonishing story of a Nova Scotia woman who left her family to make the arduous journey to New York City to hear Joseph Conrad read. Rich in mystery, irony, and beauty, Norman's unique homage to Nova Scotia and its people is exactly what literature about place should be: utterly transporting. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2004
The author of five novels (e.g., The Bird Artist) and a collector of Native American tales, Norman here turns his attention to the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. This four-part collection of first-person travel essays describes Norman's research there, as well as some of the stories he discovered. Part 1 relates the tale of Marlais Quire, a young woman who left her family in Nova Scotia to travel to New York to hear Joseph Conrad speak. Not only does she mistakenly believe that her husband is killed as a result of her desertion but she also fails to get close to Conrad. The narrative wanders back and forth, offering letters, folktales, and Norman's feelings and opinions, as well as an extremely long list of birds native to Nova Scotia. Unexpected, often fascinating, and difficult to characterize, this book will likely appeal only to other researchers. Buy for collections of Canadiana and for public libraries where travel essays are popular.-Alison Hopkins, Brantford P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.