Shoal Lake Rising
by Aaron Magnusson
From the 1700�s until the mid 20th century, the number of Icelanders immigrating to Manitoba climbed steadily. Manitoba�s thriving Icelandic community is the largest outside of Iceland; even those who left the community return regularly. Aaron Magnasson collects and examines the histories of both established and not-so-established Icelandic-Canadian families. Magnasson uses these recounted histories as a backdrop for his overarching historical examination of mass Icelandic migration to Manitoba. Shoal Lake Rising is one of the only novels to tap into the rich and untold history of these immigrants.
A professor of linguistics at MIT, Aaron Magnasson has long been interested by his home community in Northern Manitoba, where he returns yearly with his wife and children.
�Shoal Lake Rising... opens up the heart of Manitoba and peels back the layers of history to expose an untold story. Told with a courage that brought the first Icelandic settlers to this land, Aaron Magnusson retraces the forgotten lines of a collective consciousness, pulling the reader into a misplaced, but known, landscape.� (no one inparticular)
Excerpt from Shoal Lake Rising
�Sieg dug the toe of his boot into the dry earth, ran his fingers through the brittle wheat crop, the way he�d run his fingers through Jennie�s hair. His
throat tasted dusty. He looked over his shoulder towards the house, his mother
was hunched on the porch step, her legs parted, the skirt making a hammock
between her legs. He turned back and looked out over the acres of land, all the
way to where the riverbed curved, pushing the crops in closer to the house.
Everything in front of him was brown. The sun drenched brown of his pop�s
hands, the last thought of summer after summer. Sieg dug his toe in further and
closed his eyes.�
273 pp, 140mm x 210mm
softcover (fiction)
$15.50 (Can), $11.95 (US)
ISBN: 0-90210-79-3