Childhood by
André Alexis

Nominated by:
Ottawa Public Library, Ottawa, Canada

Childhood is Andre Alexis's beautifully crafted debut novel. It is a story about love, about memory - and forgiveness - about the persistence, the potency, of the past. Set in a Southern Ontario town close to the U.S. border in the '50s and '60s, and in Ottawa in the years that follow, the story is narrated by Thomas MacMillan. Through his clear-eyed vision and his unsentimental ordering of events, we meet a cast of brilliantly drawn characters. Among them are: Edna MacMillan, Thomas's volatile, unpredictable Trinidadian grandmother: and Katarina, the mother who left him at birth and, ten years later, in the company of the sinister Mr. Mataf, swoops him up and takes him from Petrolia. Soon after, we meet the unforgettable Henry Wing, a black man with Chinese blood, a gentle conjurer who lives in faded Victorian splendour, and whose life's work as a self-styled scientist is collecting esoteric facts of the natural world. Uniquely imagined, vividly evoked, Childhood is at once lyrical and profound, moving and wryly humorous. It is an intricately textured chronicle of a life in which a man's quest for what is lost discloses the ambiguous nature of the past, and leads him closer to the truth about himself.
Andre Alexis was born in Trinidad in 1957 and grew up in Canada. His collection of short stories, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa (1994), was shortlisted for a Regional Commonwealth Prize. His fiction has appeared in literary journals and in anthologies. He has written for radio and for theatre, has been a playwright-in-residence at the Canadian stage Company, and is a contributing editor for This Magazine as well as a reviewer for the Globe and Mail. Andre Alexis lives in Toronto, where he is at work on his next novel.

Here's what the members of the Reading Group based at our Raheny branch library think of Childhood:

The novel is set in Southern Ontario and is narrated by Thomas MacMillan. Using a simple and very readable style, he traces his childhood years, and paints a vivid picture of the characters that shaped his life. He is abandoned by his mother at birth and spends his early years with a stern grandmother who seems unable to show affection. When he is ten years old his mother, Katarina, collects him and takes him on a precarious journey to Ottawa in the company of the unpleasant Mr. Mataf. Eventually mother and son reach the home Henry Wing and, under Henry's protection, the young Thomas experiences love and security for the first time. Wing, a self-styled scientist, introduces him to a world of magical experiments and becomes his ideal father figure. Childhood is a beautifully crafted work which portrays a young boy's attempt to piece together episodes from an unspoken past, and his ability to cope with fear and loneliness without casting blame. It is a story of unselfish love, gently told. Most enjoyable.
(Member of the Raheny Library Reading Group)