The Island Walkers : A Novel

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

A Finalist for the 2003 Giller Prize

Across a bend of Ontario's Attawan River lies the Island, where, for generations, the Walkers have lived among other mill workers. But in the summer of 1965, with the threat of mill closures looming, the Walkers grapple with their personal crises, just as the rest of the town fights to protect its way of life.

Superbly crafted and deeply moving, this book is at once a love letter to a place, a gripping family saga, and testimony to the emergence of an important new novelist.

“Clear-eyed narration and gorgeous description...a profoundly sensitive portrayal of a family's efforts to find its way through the tangled threads of desire and nobility, guilt and love.” —Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor

“Bemrose's poetic touch...finds beauty in obscure corners and grandeur in small victories.” —Baltimore Sun

“As fine as any [novel] you will read this year...Among its pleasures is that which comes from reading a writer with a genuine sense of place.” —New York Sun