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Enlarge Cover
list price: $24.95
edition:Paperback
category: Biography & Autobiography
published: Mar 2013
ISBN:9781927366080
publisher:
Brindle & Glass Publishing
Description
A tribute to nature’s influence on the creative process, Bog Tender is a stunning memoir that explores nature and the act of writing, and where the two intersect. Accomplished fiction author George Szanto lives and writes on a bog that cuts his property in two. Rather than filling in the wetland, he has embraced it as a site of inspiration. Pieced together in 12 chapters—one for each month of the year—this enchanting narrative explores how Szanto’s writing process is affected by the bog’s transformations throughout the seasons. Through each chapter, the author searches for the moments of greatest consequence to him, from his parents’ escape from Hitler’s Vienna to his time spent studying in Germany, and from meeting his future wife and becoming a parent, to his adventures in Mexico.
Set in a place where city is left behind for rural space, Bog Tender is about home and the intricate connections that evolve under and above the water.
Editorial Reviews
Refreshing and satisfying, Bog Tender reveals a writer deep in reflection and quite happy with his lot. —Quill & Quire
A delicate, impressionistic memoir, drawing together strands of the past and ongoing present . . . Beautifully written, deeply felt . . . A celebration of finding one’s place in the world. —Times Colonist
A moving and very thoughtful memoir of George Szanto’s lifelong dance between literature and adventure, wanderlust and home. —Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress
Watching his bogland on Gabriola Island as its life revolves around the circuit of seasons has put George Szanto at the perfect vantage point for reflection and storytelling. He delivers both in generous spades of visualization, language, and drama, whether in recalling fishing trips or eye surgery, dreaming the ideal house or bringing a loved parent back to life through reminiscence, watching in gaped-mouth wonder at the antics of birds or digging deep into family photographs. ‘The sections of a house,’ he writes, ‘should recognize and live with each other, bringing a sense of harmony to those inside.’ Just so do the sections of Bog Tender bring a reader to a sense of recognition of the harmony of one writer’s life of relationships. —Myrna Kostash, author of Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium
Part memoir, part travelogue, part meditation on the natural life of the author’s beloved bog, Bog Tender is a passionately thoughtful book. Szanto writes with wonderful lucidity, never leaving the reader, always circling back to the essence of things. Frog lust and stink cabbage. —Susan Crean, author of the award-winning (Hubert Evans, 2001)The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr
The National Post's story behind the story: George Szanto on Bog Tender
Exquisitely rendered. —Gabriola Sounder
Genuinely heartbreaking . . . Vividly described . . . Szanto is acutely, almost painfully, sensitive to the world outside his front door. —National Post
Lushly rendered. . . . An earthy, homespun and voyeuristically satisfying book. —Kirkus Reviews
Quill & Quire includes Bog Tender on their Spring preview for 2013.
Memory is one of the rare privileges of age. With compassion, wise humour, and a poet’s eye for the telling detail, George Szanto has given us a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress from one man’s intimate story to a dazzling meditation on history and nature. —Alberto Manguel
Out of print
This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.
