Raincoast Books
Available: 02/19/04
6 x 9 · 320 pages
978-1-55192-695-7
CDN $8.99 · cl

Canadian Title

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Some Great Thing

Colin McAdam

Winner: 2005 First Novel Award (Books in Canada/Amazon.ca)
Finalist: 2005 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
Finalist: Commonwealth Writers Prize–Best First Book
Finalist: 2004 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

The time is the seventies. The place is Ottawa, a developing city ready for the taking. Two men from very different backgrounds take up the challenge: Jerry McGuinty, plasterer turned builder, a simple, self-made man; and Simon Struthers, whose inherited wealth and position cannot fill the hollowness he feels inside. As the men’s careers and successes run parallel, we see how love is suffocated by work and how individuals are crushed by greed and “progress.”

With skill, energy, humour and poetry, Colin McAdam creates a world of ambition and desire, power and corruption. Some Great Thing is one of the most thrillingly original novels in years.

“An extraordinary, powerful novel—technically ambitious, passionate and beautifully observed. Filled with the truth of human frailty, the mystery of craft and the stark bewilderment of love.” —A. L. Kennedy

“Some Great Thing ... is being hailed as the Next Great Thing, with people banding about the name James Joyce in comparison to his book ... the psychology shifts from character to character, through varying chronology and narrative points of view, with a musicality of prose that is breathtaking.” —Globe and Mail

“truly great ... The debut novel of the year.” —EnRoute Magazine

“A bravura accomplishment of voice and style, a burst of pure energy — McAdam’s vigorous prose, dynamic narrative and brilliant cast of characters is built like one of Jerry McGuinty’s structures: a solid fucken house.” —2004 Governor General’s Literary Awards Jury

Colin McAdam is a Canadian who grew up in Hong Kong, Denmark, England and Canada. Educated at McGill University and Cambridge, he now divides his time between Sydney and Montreal. Some Great Thing is his first book. It is published by Raincoast in Canada, Jonathan Cape in the U.K. and Harcourt in the U.S.