Hard Edge

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

This novel by Toronto author F.G. Paci continues the saga of the Italian
immigrant Trecroci family from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

The hero of Hard Edge is a troubled schoolteacher and aspiring writer
named Marco Trecroci (aka “Croach”), who routinely cheats on his
girlfriend, Lisa James. Whereas Croach seeks “to build a house of
words” with his daemon godfather, Sшren Kierkegaard, struggling
Toronto artist Lisa is committed to Emily Carr and to the hard-edged
type of art that “generates tension.” The tension between the
couple’s respective art forms and philosophies spills over into their
lives, with Lisa wanting the traditional, long-term relationship that
Croach stubbornly resists. In the wake of their inevitable breakup,
Croach will come to regret “the hardness of [his] heart.”

Paci does an excellent job of depicting Italian immigrant life in
Canada and the cultural contrasts between the Soo and the novel’s
three other settings: Toronto, New York, and Paris. Some readers will
find Croach’s machismo hard to take; others will find Paci’s
romantic novel of “art, love and knowledge” hard to put down.