Voyageurs: A Novel - Hardcover

Elphinstone, Margaret

4

308 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841955493 ISBN 13: 9781841955490

Publisher: Canongate U.S., 2004

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The year is 1811 and the fledgling U.S. empire is about to embark on war with Britain. Mark Greenhow, a young, peaceful Quaker, leaves northern England to find his sister, Rachel, a missionary missing and presumed dead in the wilds of wartime Canada. As a result, this thoughtful, earnest young man is thrown into a world of roughneck fur traders, British spies, and embattled Native Americans while struggling to survive in deepest Canada. Along the way, his religious convictions and familial loyalty are tested by the passion evoked in him by a beautiful young woman he encounters in his travels.

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About the Author:

Margaret Elphinstone is the author of eight novels, including The Incomer (1987), A Sparrow's Flight (1989), Islanders (1994), The Sea Road (2000), Hy Brasil (2002), Voyageurs (2003) and Light (2006). She has also had published short stories, poetry and two books on organic gardening. Her next book, And Some There Be, will be published by Canongate in 2009. She lives in Glasgow and teaches at the University of Strathclyde

From Publishers Weekly:

Presented as a manuscript discovered by the author in the attic of her country house in the North of England, this meticulously crafted, self-reflexive historical novel tells the story of Mark Greenhow, whose Quaker family once owned the house. In 1811, Mark's younger sister, Rachel, while doing missionary work in Canada, met and married Adam Mackenzie, a Scot associated with the fur trade in North America. Because the marriage was outside the order, Rachael was disowned; subsequently, she lost her baby and mysteriously disappeared into the wilds of what is today northern Michigan. Determined to discover his sister's fate, Mark departs for Canada, where he spends nearly two years sorely testing his Quaker faith through episodes that reveal to him the wider world beyond his placid English countryside. In the meantime, the War of 1812 rages and Mark tries to avoid the kinds of "vain" entanglements that would contradict his beliefs. The inclusion of Mark's own footnotes, lengthy discourses and commentary on his adventures and their aftermath lessens the story's suspense. The novel's interest lies in Mark's struggle to reconcile his faith with the verities and practicalities of the "real world" and in Elphinstone's mastery of early 19th-century argot.
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