From the Publisher
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, a
Canadian bestseller, is a novel about Newfoundland that centres on
the story of Joe Smallwood, the true-life controversial political
figure who ushered the island through confederation with Canada and
became its first premier. Narrated from Smallwood''s perspective,
it voices a deep longing on the part of the Newfoundlander to do
something significant, "commensurate with the greatness of the land
itself". The New York Times said, "this prodigious,
eventful, character-rich book is a noteworthy achievement: a
biting, entertaining and inventive saga.... a brilliant and bravura
literary performance".
Smallwood, born in 1900, is the first of thirteen children raised
from the 'scruff' of Newfoundland, as opposed to the 'quality'. The
colony is seen as an unworthy and negligible place: as his teacher
from England says, "The worst of our lot comes over here, inbreeds
for several hundred years and the end-product is a hundred thousand
Newfoundlanders with Smallwood at the bottom of the barrel."
Smallwood, who still weighs only 75 pounds at the age of 20, seems
an unlikely hero to fulfil what he sees as his mission: to
transform the 'old lost land', with its lack of identity, into 'the
new found land'; and meanwhile to rise "not from rags to riches,
but from obscurity to world renown." With perseverance and
determination, he sets about the task, becoming a journalist for a
socialist newspaper in New York and then a union leader, at one
point walking the 700-mile railway track across the island to sell
memberships to the section-men living in shacks. He sees beyond his
unpromising background, the cold and unrelenting hardship and
isolation, envisioning a proud and great destiny. Eventually, a
politician full of wild moneymaking schemes, he is swept into a
world of intrigues and the machinations of the power elite, just as
Newfoundland must decide whether to become an independent country
or to join Canada.
In counterpoint to the earnest endeavours of Smallwood, champion of
the poor and the workers, is the Dorothy Parker-like figure of his
lifelong friend, Sheilagh Fielding. Their paths first cross at the
private school from which Smallwood is expelled, falsely accused of
writing a letter critical of the school, and thenceforth their
lives are inextricably intertwined. Fielding becomes an acerbic
newspaper columnist, a hard drinker with a sharp tongue who shares
a strange love-hate relationship with Smallwood. Her cynical
columns and personal journals are interspersed among Smallwood's
account, along with her irreverent and satirical Condensed
History of Newfoundland.
In writing a work of the imagination in part inspired by historical
events, Johnston wanted "to fashion out of the formless infinitude
of 'facts'…a work of art that would express a felt, emotional
truth... Adherence to the 'facts' will not lead you safely through
the labyrinthine pathways of the human heart." Johnston was 19 when
he met the real Joe Smallwood; he was just starting out as a
journalist, and Smallwood was less than complimentary about
Johnston's reporting. Although the politician died only in 1991,
little was written about his life before the age of fifty, allowing
Johnston some license to imagine his formative influences.
"I wanted to write a big book about Newfoundland in scope and in
vision. I couldn''t think of a bigger character whose life touched
on more themes, involved the whole of Newfoundland more completely
than Smallwood did." Smallwood saw Newfoundland in terms of
"unrealized talent and unfulfilled ambition"; his life was somehow
emblematic of the land. Moreover, says Johnston, "He was so prone
to making mistakes and so fallible, and he combines so many
contradictions in his personality. His quest, like that of many
great literary figures of the past century, is to overcome these
divisions." The completely invented character of Fielding,
meanwhile, "is like me", says Johnston. "I share her view of
Newfoundland."
The title of the book, Johnston says, evokes "the nostalgia
Newfoundlanders have felt for the possibilities of the island, and
that they still have for the future. Joe is always searching for
something commensurate with the greatness of the land itself, but
he can''t find it, and it''s driving him mad…Newfoundland is that
kind of place. It makes you want to live up to the landscape, but
on the other hand it offers you no resources to do so. There''s
always this constant yearning that at least for my part helped me
to start writing."
Smallwood's chronicle of his development from poor schoolboy to
Father of the Confederation is a story full of epic journeys and
thwarted loves, travelling from the ice floes of the seal hunt to
New York City, in a style reminiscent at times of John Irving,
Robertson Davies and Charles Dickens. Absorbing and entertaining,
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams provides us with a
deep perspective on the relationship between private lives and what
comes to be understood as history and shows, as E. Annie Proulx
commented, "Wayne Johnston is a brilliant and accomplished writer."
Bookclub Guide
1. The New York Times said Newfoundland asserts itself
as a setting in the novel "to the point of claiming a character
role"; also that "the profound but…doomed love between [Fielding]
and Smallwood is the novel's heart and soul". To what extent do you
think the novel is about Smallwood and Fielding, and to what extent
is it about Newfoundland?
2. How do Fielding and Smallwood's views of Newfoundland
differ?
3. "There is no reason for us to be so much in the thrall of our
historical figures that we cannot suspend our disbelief when
writers of fiction ring variations on their lives," wrote Johnston
in The Globe and Mail, after a journalist complained that
Joey Smallwood was too much "within reach of memory" to be a fit
subject for a novel. How might a reader's knowledge (or lack of
knowledge) about the real Joey Smallwood affect the reading of the
novel?
4. Can you compare The Colony of Unrequited
Dreams to another novel of Newfoundland - or to a
novel by John Irving or Charles Dickens?
Edition Details
