Literary, Canada, Irish fiction, Irish, Families, Ireland, Canadian fiction, Historical Fiction, Farmers 

An Irish family escapes the potato famine by emigrating to Canada. The novel traces its contribution to the culture of its adopted land--from Irish sense of humor to Irish idealism--the latter leading one of its members to engage in political assassination.

Publisher Comments
A stunning, evocative novel set in Ireland and Canada, Away traces a familys complex and layered past. The narrative unfolds with shimmering clarity, and takes us from the harsh northern Irish coast in the 1840s to the quarantine stations at Grosse Isle and the barely hospitable land of the Canadian Shield; from the flourishing town of Port Hope to the flooded streets of Montreal; from Ottawa at the time of Confederation to a large-windowed house at the edge of a Great Lake during the present day. Graceful and moving, Away unites the personal and the political as it explores the most private, often darkest corners of our emotions where the things that root us to ourselves endure. Powerful, intricate, lyrical, Away is an unforgettable novel. 

A hundred and forty years before and thousands of miles away, the girl Mary had been the first to witness the beginning of the miracle. Stumbling across the new stones whose texture made walking difficult, she had turned to face the ocean which had robbed her of her favourite boulders. She had been, in those early days, cursed with the gift of eloquence — a gift that would be taken from her forever one hour later. The sea responded to her rant by turning an odd shade of whitish green and swelling up as if it were about to reveal a hidden volcano, and Mary watched, stunned, as thousands of cabbages nudged one another towards the shore. Soon the vegetables completely covered the new stones while behind them the ocean was divided into bands of colour; darks and lights separated by ribbons of glitter. The glitter, it turned out, consisted of a large quantity of silver teapots, so perfectly designed against spillage that they proved very seaworthy as they bounced cheerfully towards the beach. The darker bands revealed themselves to be barrels of whiskey — enough barrels of whiskey to keep any who might want to be, drunk every Saturday night for decades. Flung across two of these barrels was, as Mary gradually perceived, a human form; its head thrown back, one half of its face hidden by a profusion of dark, wet curls. As the barrels that carried it approached the shore, Mary waded through fifty clanking teapots to meet it, and found an exhausted young man who, when she grabbed his shirt in her fists, opened two sea-green eyes and spoke the name Moira before falling once again into semi-consciousness. 

Genre/Form: Domestic fiction
Historical fiction
Fiction
History
Material Type: Fiction
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Jane Urquhart
ISBN: 9780771086533 0771086539
OCLC Number: 61755531
Notes: First published: Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, 1993.
Description: 356 p. ; 21 cm.
Responsibility: Jane Urquhart.