"
A Globe and Mail top 100 book of
2012
Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers'' Trust
Prize for Nonfiction
A bestselling author embarks on a profound and
dramatic journey through the eloquent landscape of southwestern
Saskatchewan.
When Candace Savage and her partner buy a house in the
romantic little town of Eastend, she has no idea what awaits her.
At first she enjoys exploring the area around their new home,
including the boyhood haunts of the celebrated American writer
Wallace Stegner, the backroads of the Cypress Hills, the dinosaur
skeletons at the T.Rex Discovery Centre, the fossils to be found in
the dust-dry hills. She also revels in her encounters with the wild
inhabitants of this mysterious land - two coyotes in a ditch at
night, their eyes glinting in the dark; a deer at the window; a
cougar pussy-footing it through a gully a few minutes'' walk from
town.
But as Savage explores further, she uncovers a darker
reality - a story of cruelty and survival set in the still-recent
past - and finds that she must reassess the story she grew up with
as the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of prairie
homesteaders.
Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and imbued
with Savage''s passion for this place, A Geography of
Blood offers both a shocking new version of plains history and
an unforgettable portrait of the windswept, shining country of the
Cypress Hills, a holy place that helps us remember.
"
