Atlantica: Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities:
British Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and the author of The Salvation
Army and the Public.

This collection of stories by such accomplished writers as Alistair
MacLeod, Wayne Johnston, David Helwig, Joan Clark, John Steffler,
Bernice Morgan, and David Adams Richards is a fictionary feast. Whether
it be the sly irony of Bernice Morgan’s “Poems in a Cold Climate,”
the quirky but tragic characters in Sheldon Currie’s “The Glace Bay
Miner’s Museum,” the pathos of John Steffler’s “The Afterlife of
George Cartwright,” there is a variety of subject and tone to satisfy
diverse tastes.

The only disappointment is the introduction. While the stories
demonstrate that Atlantic Canada is rich in fictional creativity, they
do not demonstrate that the region is, as the editor suggests, a
“literary nation unto itself.” For one thing, the stories from
Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia (especially Cape
Breton), and New Brunswick have distinctly different flavors. And for
another, most of the stories are thematically quite cosmopolitan and do
not reflect the kind of parochialism talked about in the introduction.
Simply put, they are great stories: while the introduction may be a
necessary feature for college students, no other rationale is needed.