Description
First published in 1981 to wide acclaim, a haunting family novel by'a daringly skillful writer.' (Philip Roth)
Foreword by Mary Gordon
First published in 1981 to wide acclaim, The Countryfollows the last visits of a son, Daniel Francoeur, to his parents' home before the death of his father. Wanting to understand this enigmatic man, Daniel seeks insight through the particulars of his father's life-handling his father's tools and tending to his father's feeble body. Through this contact, his father's mysteries are revealed: his Native-American heritage, his lifelong work as a toolmaker, and his deep and conflicted relationships with his invalid wife and his seven sons.
Written quietly, with great force, The Country illuminates the ties of family, the relationships between fathers and sons, and the love that is often hidden, but ever present.
About the Author
The son of Albina Bisson and Aniclet Plante, he is of both French-Canadian and North American Indian descent.He is a graduate of Boston College and the Université catholique de Louvain. He has been published extensively including in The New Yorker and The Paris Review and various literary magazines. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Among his honours are: Henfield Fellow, University of East Anglia, 1975; British Arts Council Grant, 1977; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1983; American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1983. He is an Ambassador for the LGBT Committee of the New York Public Library. His voluminous diary is kept in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. His papers are kept in the library of The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is a retired professor of creative writing at Columbia University. His novels examine the spiritual in a variety of contexts, but notably in the milieu of large, working-class, Catholic families of French Canadian background. His male characters range from openly gay to sexually ambiguous and questioning.He has been a writer-in-residence at Gorki Institute of Literature (Moscow), the Université du Québec à Montréal, Adelphi University, King's College, the University of Cambridge, Tulsa University, and the University of East Anglia. Plante’s work, for which he has been nominated for the National Book Award, includes Difficult Women (1983), a memoir of his relationships with Jean Rhys, Sonia Orwell, and Germaine Greer and the widely-praised Francoeur Trilogy--The Family (1978), The Country (1980) and The Woods (1982). His most recent book is a memoir of Nikos Stangos, his partner of forty years, The Pure Lover (2009). The papers of his former partner, Nikos Stangos (1936-2004), are in The Princeton University Library, the Program in Hellenic Studies. Plante lives in London, Lucca Italy, and Athens Greece. He has dual citizenship, American and British.Considered to be a writer's writer and having lived for so many years among the artistic elite, David's personal memories are seen by many as high cultural history.
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