Perry Chafe

The audience for this novel is likely young adult. The narrator is Pierce Jacobs who after three years is still mourning the death of his father, a fisherman who never returned from a fishing trip. He’s being raised by his mother who works at the fish processing plant. He’s a good kid and becomes very suspicious of a local stranger, Solomon Vickers when a local teenager Anna Tessler disappears.
With his friends Thomas, Bennie and Bennie’s visiting cousin Emily, they search for evidence that Solomon has abducted Anna.
Meanwhile, the fishing industry in Newfoundland in 1991 is about to be shut down by the federal government and the future of the citizens looks very grim.
Ok story for a teenage audience… (mehr)

This book hit close to home for me. This is Perry Chafe’s first novel, although he has done writing for some popular Newfoundland television shows. I really enjoyed this book set in a small island off the Newfoundland coast. It is the summer of 1991, and a young island girl has gone missing. Pierce and his friends Benny and Tommy are spending the summer collecting and selling cod tongues. The boys are twelve-years old, and having the time of their lives in the summer before they all have to go to the mainland for school when Anna goes missing. Pierce is especially troubled because he knew her and was drawn to her. Also, three years ago his father never returned home from fishing, something that he did everyday. I was drawn to this book because of the setting. 1991 was the beginning of bad news about the cod fishing industry in Newfoundland. Fish stocks were dwindling, and it was a year before a moratorium was placed on the industry for a number of years. They were hard times for all Newfoundlanders, and Perry Chafe touches on that in this book.I have visited Newfoundland and the book brought back wonderful memories. Chafe himself lives in a small town near St. John’s. Petty Harbour is where we stayed on that holiday. I loved the place, the scenery, the nightly Atlantic, and especially the people of Newfoundland. Chafe brought these things back to me as I read his book. This book is partly a coming-of-age story, partly mystery and suspense and partly literary fiction about a place that I love. I’d like to thank Perry Chafe, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this wonderful book. Canadian literature at its best here.… (mehr)