When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon. Though Judah is a shocking addition, the town of Paradise Deep is already full of unusual characters. King-me Sellers, self-appointed patriarch, has it in for an inscrutable woman known only as Devine’s Widow, with whom he has a decades-old feud. Her granddaughter, Mary Tryphena, is just a child when Judah washes ashore but finds herself tied to him all her life in ways she never expects. Galore is the story of the saga that develops between these families, full of bitterness and love, spanning two centuries.
With Paradise Deep, award-winning novelist Michael Crummey imagines a realm in which the line between the everyday and the otherworldly is impossible to discern. Sprawling and intimate, stark and fantastical, Galore is a novel about the power of stories to shape and sustain us.
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"Galore begins with a whale beached near a small community in Newfoundland. As the people in the town begin cutting up the carcass of the whale, a widow woman, considered the town witch, discovers a live albino young man in the beast's belly. So begins this wonderful adventure of two centuries of stories which make up the remote (almost Medieval) town of Paradise Deep. Having been raised on stories about my small hometown, I was enchanted by the narrator's gift at combining reality with magic realism. It's a must read on my list."
— David (5 out of 5 stars)
“Michael Crummey is a passionate storyteller. His world is intensely imagined and starkly real. Life leaps off the pages of Galore.”
— Jane Mendelsohn, New York Times bestselling author“[An] expansive yarn…in lilting prose.”
— New Yorker“This is the book that will win Crummey a permanent place in American readers’ hearts. With Galore he has done something much more besides writing a compulsively readable book. He has created an unforgettable place of the imagination. Paradise Deep belongs on the same literary map as Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha and García Márquez’s Macondo.”
— Boston Globe“Like the two-faced ocean they pull their living from, Crummey’s characters in this multigenerational unwinding are icy and surprising. The denizens of Paradise Deep and its neighboring town, the Gut, end up as twisted as the wind-tortured trees, making for a quirky quilt of personalities that might remind a reader of Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News.”
— Washington Post“A glittering, fabulist tale…Reminiscent of the work of Jean Giono, particularly Joy of Man’s Desiring, and Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, Galore is a tale in which humans are confronted with the miraculous.”
— Los Angeles Times“In grand language and colorful storytelling, Michael Crummey traces through several generations the fortunes of two families from the outport of Paradise Deep in Newfoundland…This is a book to savor. You won’t want to miss any of its delights: the tightly braided narrative skeins, the pathos and humor of the characters, the exotic flavor of a long ago time and place.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune“Michael Crummey’s Galore is a fabulous, fable-filled ball of yarns such as I’ve never encountered before. Tall but plausible tales, odd, eccentric but weirdly familiar characters, dialogue straight out of the mouths of outport Newfoundlanders, historicized fiction, fictionalized history—it has, as its title suggests, a superabundance of good things. This is art, but not art full of solemn, self-importance. Galore is artfully, and seriously, entertaining.”
— Wayne Johnston, bestselling author“It’s an incredibly difficult task to make characters such as these work as human beings as well as elements of folklore, and Crummey does it with as much skill and grace as Gabriel Garcia Márquez does in One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
— Globe and Mail“Pitch-perfect, boisterous…Galore is an endearing romp. For the language alone—and there is so much more—I loved the book.”
— National Post“This economically told epic is masterful, written by a man with enough confidence to let his readers interpolate the meaning not only of certain words, but entire character arcs.”
— Toronto Star“Michael Crummey’s third novel injects an element of magic realism to convey an otherworldly quality…a dense, intricate, and absorbing tale, rich in the nuances of human relationships.”
— Quill & Quire“Galore is an absolute pleasure. In Crummey’s capable hands, the setting breeds magic…A complex narrative that feels effortless, yet is woven so tightly that the magnificent artistry of its creator cannot be ignored.”
— Walrus“Mythic and gorgeous…Crummey lovingly carves out the privation and inner intricacies that mark his characters’ lives with folkloric embellishments and the precision of the finest scrimshaw.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Newfoundland author Crummey’s award-winning third novel…affirms that our lives are always astonishing. It’s been justly compared to Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. It also calls to mind Graham Swift’s Waterland and Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria, as well as William Faulkner’s epic Compson novels, and will appeal to readers who enjoyed those works.”
— Library Journal (starred review)“In a sweeping story of several generations, Galore reveals the lives of the Irish and West Country English in rugged Newfoundland…The novel sizzles with an edge of the fantastic as Crummey keeps the action going while circling around to reveal back-story…Capturing the speech and temper of a primitive world, and communicating it perfectly, the writer delivers a masterpiece.”
— ForeWord Reviews“Ghosts, gangsters, mermen, and a Christ-like healer who emerges from the belly of a beached whale are among the attractions in a boisterous, one-of-a-kind folk epic about feuding intermarried clans in Newfoundland…A lively, eccentric, mythmaking novel inspired by two hundred years of Canadian history."
— Kirkus Reviews“Crummey’s ambitious story of immigrant settlement, family alliances and clashes, heroism and failure is deeply moving and disquieting, sure to make some waves.”
— Booklist" This book is a Newfoundland version of One Hundred Years of Solitude: a fascinating blend of the magical and of harsh reality. Both books overwhelmed me at times and I sometimes had trouble keeping track of all the characters; nevertheless, Galore is a masterpiece. It is packed with eccentric characters, both harsh and beautiful descriptions of Newfoundland life and culture, painstaking research, and a roller coaster of emotions. I think I will need to read it again. Highly recommended. "
— Ellen, 2/11/2014" Sort of like One Hundred Years of Solitude in Newfoundland, on crack. But I liked it. "
— Rika, 2/8/2014" This is a novel I feel I really should like more than I did. The characters intrigued me, but I wanted to know more about them. More breadth than depth here, and I found myself losing track of the relationships between the characters and getting confused over the Protestant/Catholic antagonisms. Perhaps the fault lies with me, and it just wasn't the right time for me to read it: perhaps it's more of a winter than summer read? "
— cdcoleman, 2/1/2014" Great, great. Totally engrossing, but also very well-written. "
— Gesse, 1/23/2014" I'm really impressed by this one. Really well-done throughout, and I pity whoever doesn't make it to that last page, no matter how good the rest of the book is. Aside from the writing as a whole, which I loved, it answers the question of how one ends a sprawling, multigenerational family saga: Very, very elegantly. My hat is off to him (and a longer review to follow on LF). "
— Lisa, 1/19/2014" This was "The Shipping News" without all the endless depression. I'm still trying to think through all of the layers of repetition and cycling among characters, but before all that, it was just a delight to read. There was never much to dread, even though nothing was ever easy or light for these many hapless Newfoundlanders. "
— Alicia, 1/12/2014" This was a good literary tale starting with a man being born out of a whales mouth. There were a lot of old fashioned tales/myths that tied together this novel and a lot of literary implications. This book is multi layered and well worth the read! "
— Mary, 1/12/2014" A tough read. Started out really strong, but by the end I was struggling to get through the book. "
— Jason, 1/5/2014" Been a while since I've read something this engaging, and the folklore had much to do with it. "
— Bruce, 1/2/2014" I really enjoyed this book. The sprinkle of fantastic folklore really added to the story. "
— Carrie, 12/13/2013" Magical realism is just not for me. That being said, Michael Crummy writes well. His use of magical realism to tell a history of Newfoundlanders is quite adequate and for some readers, I would think they would find it quite charming. "
— Mary, 4/23/2013" Combines compelling storytelling with masterful writing to create a world I did not want to leave. "
— Alom, 3/1/2013" This was a very, very good story. One of the few books I got from the library and was so sad that I hadn't bought it first. It was hard having to return it. The story was deep and complex, with a very creative roll call of characters. I can't wait to read it again. "
— Sarah, 2/5/2013" Wicked, wicked good. "
— Julie, 6/11/2012" Loved it. Magic realism in Newfoundland. "
— Angela, 5/24/2012" Disjointed. Difficult to decipher. "
— Ann, 5/10/2012" A fun mixture of history, superstition and folk tale, this wryly-written saga of life in a Newfoundland coastal village is humorous, poignant and stark in its observation of the characters and the changing society they live in. "
— Jan, 12/28/2011" Maybe more like 3.5 - I loved the quirkiness, but got distracted sometimes by the incomplete sentences. "
— stillme, 10/13/2011" I could not get into this book, and didn't finish it. Too wordy?? Too busy with the end of the school year? Too slow-moving and too many characters that I could never keep straight? I guess we'll never know, but I'm setting it aside for other reads now:-) "
— Bree, 8/24/2011" I really enjoyed this book with all of the Newfoundland language and expressions, superstitions, legends, etc. "
— Diane, 5/13/2011" started off amazing. then got a little tough - lots of names. overall a pretty okay read. "
— Jennifer, 5/12/2011" A fantastical, completely fictional, telling of the early history of Newfoundland and the effect two families' constant, sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle, feud had on the formation of a community in a barren, frozen land. If you like epic sagas, this one's for you. "
— sean, 5/10/2011" I lost momentum and gave up. Considering the smattering of good to great reviews, I feel like I'm missing something. Just not for me. "
— Mike, 5/7/2011" Wow. Just the kind of rich, quirky family saga that I love reading--and set in Newfoundland to boot! "
— theda, 5/7/2011" I had a hard time putting this book down. It was an epic in the best traditions of magical realism with fascinating characters and a sprawling historical view that still managed to see personal. I would highly recomend it. "
— Jessie, 5/7/2011" Great read. The names became confused to me at times, difficult to read on Kindle because of the difficulty of going back. "
— Paulette, 5/2/2011" Details about something like 18 generations of Newfoundlanders fishing life in a small coastal town. Long and abstract. "
— Sandra, 5/1/2011" I hard a hard time keeping up with all the characters and how they were all related. "
— Linda, 4/21/2011Michael Crummey is a poet and storyteller, as well as the author of the critically acclaimed novels River Thieves and The Wreckage and the short-story collection Flesh and Blood. He has been nominated for the Giller Prize, the IMPAC Dublin Award, and Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and he won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Canada for Galore. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
John Lee is the winner of numerous Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration. He has twice won acclaim as AudioFile’s Best Voice in Fiction & Classics. He also narrates video games, does voice-over work, and writes plays. He is an accomplished stage actor and has written and coproduced the feature films Breathing Hard and Forfeit. He played Alydon in the 1963–64 Doctor Who serial The Daleks.