The Friends of Meager Fortune.

Richards, David Adams (author).

A multifaceted novel by an award-winning Canadian writer, this work begins at a slow pace, both illustrating and reflecting on the petty cruelties of human beings toward each other. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, it builds momentum as the deceptions and lies weave a tangled web that finally captures most of the major players in a crushingly tragic outcome. A prophecy at the beginning of the novel takes on a life of its own, leading the reader to ask what might have happened if the “prophetess” had said nothing. Richards clearly demonstrates the vicissitudes of life, how heroes are created, how quickly they can topple from their pedestals, how the scorned can be reviled and then revered. At the same time, situated during and after World War II, in Richards’ usual New Brunswick setting in the Miramichi region, he gives us a firsthand view of the brutal life of courageous men in the final years of the lumber industry before mechanization changed an entire way of life. A must-have for Canadian collections in U.S. libraries.