The Stone Carvers - Softcover

"The Great Canadian Novel....An epic portrait of a nation's birth." -"Ottawa Citizen ""Breathtaking. By the end of the book, Urquhart's message about the inexorable human need to remember seems almost set in stone." -"Time " "Magnificent....A spellbinding tale...." -"Independent" (U.K.) " ""This book is not just delightful, but essential....Extraordinarily rewarding." -"Globe and Mail " "Triumphant...." "The Observer" (U.K.) "Sculptors are like lovers in this saga, awakening rock instead of flesh....Urquhart powerfully evokes the wonders of stone and the carver's art, always linking them to the human body....The novel's moving promise [is] that, if we are true to our gifts, we can at least strike a brief form from the obdurate stone of our fate." -"Maclean's" "Superb....Urquha

In 1867 Pater Archangel Gstir is sent by God to the Canadian wilds. Soon the backwoods are transformed into a parish and the settlers into a congregation, and Joseph Becker, a woodcarver, is brought together with his future wife. Decades later their grandchild Klara holds young Eamon O'Sullivan in thrall as he sits speechless in her kitchen, suffering her anger and stirring her desire. Yet just as he wins this war of love, his victory is lost to the Great War in Europe, and Klara is left alone. But when an architect plans an ambitious memorial to the Canadian dead in France, Klara must use her family skills - to carve, to create and to remember.