Emancipation Day

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How far would a son go to belong? And how far would a father go to protect him? With his curly black hair and his wicked grin, everyone swoons and thinks of Frank Sinatra when Navy musician Jackson Lewis takes the stage. It's World War II, and while stationed in St. John's, Newfoundland, Jack meets the well-heeled, romantic Vivian Clift, a local girl who has never stepped off the Rock and is desperate to see the world. They marry against Vivian's family's wishes--hard to say what it is, but there's something about Jack that they just don't like--and as the war draws to a close, the new couple travels to Windsor to meet Jack's family.But when Vivian meets Jack's mother and brother, everything she thought she knew about her new husband gets called into question. They don't live in the dream home that Jack depicted, they all look different from one another--and different from anyone Vivian has ever seen--and after weeks of waiting to meet Jack's father, William Henry, he never materializes. Steeped in jazz and big-band music, spanning pre- and post-war Windsor-Detroit, St. John's, Newfoundland, and 1950s Toronto, this is an arresting, heartwrenching novel about fathers and sons, love and sacrifice, race relations and a time in our history when the world was on the cusp of momentous change.Review“A stellar debut. This literary novel is set in the heart of the big-band era…. The music swings. So does the story. Though Grady portrays the complexities of race and racial politics, there's nothing overtly didactic here. It's a novel of ideas that succeeds precisely because it's also a good story.” —Winnipeg Free Press"This finely wrought novel navigates the complexities of love, race, and loyalties of choice. With a deft hand, Grady convinces us that whatever appearances may suggest, nothing is ever black and white." —Vincent Lam, author of The Headmaster’s Wager and Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures“A haunting, memorable, believable portrait of a man so desperate to deny his heritage that he imperils his very soul.” —Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes“A brave book to challenge every reader's thinking on race, family, fear, and love. Profound and compelling.” —Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl“Wayne Grady’s masterful novel is a compelling story about secrets and shame, denial and self-discovery, racism, and love that goes deeper than skin deep. Grady shows how the ties of family bind and also set us free. This novel is unforgettable.” —Lisa Moore, author of Alligator “Wayne Grady has created characters out of life, out of love, out of recognition and sympathy. They are not to be missed."—Linda Spalding, author of The PurchaseAbout the AuthorWAYNE GRADY is the author of fourteen highly-acclaimed books, including Breakfast at the Exit Cafe, Bringing Back the Dodo, and The Bone Museum. He is also the translator of fifteen novels from the French, and the editor of eleven anthologies of literary fiction and nonfiction. His writing has appeared in literary magazines, as well as in major newsstand magazines, including Saturday Night, Toronto Life, Canadian Geographic, Smithsonian and Explore. He won the Governor General's Award for Translation in 1989 for Antonine Maillet's On the Eighth Day, and was nominated for the same award in 1995 and again in 2005. Grady teaches creative nonfiction as a sessional lecturer at the University of British Columbia, and lives near Kingston, with his wife, novelist and creative nonfiction writer Merilyn Simonds.