Facing the Hunter

Review“Facing the Hunter is a thoughtful book and a serious book. It is a tribute not to hunting but to the hunters that have graced Richards' life, and it is spectacularly written. In 1998, he won a Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction for Lines on the Water, Facing the Hunter could earn him the same.” —New Brunswick Telegraph-JournalFrom the Hardcover edition.Product DescriptionDavid Adams Richards takes us behind his gun and into the Canadian forest for his most powerful work of non-fiction yet.In his brilliant non-fiction, David Adams Richards - first and foremost one of Canada's greatest and best-beloved novelists - has been writing a kind of memoir by other means. Like his previous titles Lines On Water, about his pursuit of angling, and Hockey Dreams, about the game his disabled body prevented him from playing, Facing the Hunter explores the meaning of a sport and the way in which it touches lives, not least that of the author. And as with God Is, his recent book about his faith, it is also an impassioned defence of a set of values and a way of life that Richards believes are under attack.Lovers of David Adams Richards' novels will be fascinated and enlightened to note the interplay between his former life as a keen hunter - he hunts less and less these days, as he explains - and the narratives and characters of his fiction. But this is also a perfect starting point for anyone coming new to Richards. The storytelling in this book, the evocation of the Canadian wild and those who venture into it, the sheer power of the prose, show a great writer at the height of his powers.From the Hardcover edition.