Fifteen years in the making, this book is the one Canada’s “heavyweight champ of brash and beautiful literature” was meant to write. An epic masterwork about Newfoundland’s working class, Blackstrap Hawco spans more than a century in gorgeous and widely varied prose, reminding us that even when writing about the degradation of identity and language, Harvey does it magnificently.

Named in a moment of anger, Blackstrap Hawco is heir to an island dominion picked over by its adoptive nation. From the arrivals of the indentured Irish to the Victorian drawing rooms of the English merchants, from the perilous seal hunt to the raucous iron ore mines, from a notorious disaster at sea to the relocation of outport communities, the family legend might be all his people have left to live for. But as Blackstrap Hawco—a novel that will consume you in its dazzling swirl of voices, legends and beautiful hearsay—testifies, a story this haunting, this powerful, might just be enough.

National Bestseller
Shortlisted for The Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book (Canada & Caribbean)
A Best Book of the Year, The Globe and Mail
One of “The 15 Books That Mattered Most in 2008”, Quill & Quire

“After years of being overshadowed by its culturally overpowering neighbor to the south, Canadian literature is finally coming into its own and savvy readers are sitting up and taking notice of writers like Harvey who mine uniquely Canadian experiences to tremendous effect.” —Booklist

“Mesmerizing scenes worthy of a national epic... Its meticulous construction and control contain a breadth of incident and characterization seen only in the most ambitious and imposing novels.” —The Globe & Mail

“An edifice of monumental proportion, fractured, razed and reassembled to startling effect.” —Literary Review of Canada

“A great writer... One of the most successfully ambitious Canadian novels in recent memory... Dirt-under-the-fingernails details rest alongside grandly conceived allegory, and the result is often thrilling.” —The Edmonton Journal

“To adequately explain in simple terms this 829-page pageant of life, told in intensely physical and painful terms reminiscent of James Joyce’s Ulysses, is nearly impossible. Reading it is essentially an existential experience... (A) highly original novel told in a style akin to an impressionist painting.” —The Canada Post

“There are moments that are literally awe-inspiring and writing so skilled it almost brought me to tears... more ambitious than any Canadian novel in recent memory.” —The Vancouver Sun

“Kenneth J. Harvey, Atlantic gale, continues to astonish. And in Blackstrap Hawco, he has given Newfoundland, not to mention the world, something very great indeed.” —National Post

“Blackstrap Hawco and his people are as vivid as the blood they spill. A journey significant to us all; universal in its grip upon the human soul. Kenneth J. Harvey demonstrates the pulse of what it means to be alive.” —Alistair MacLeod

“ A masterpiece... brutal, poignant, stunning, infuriating, heartbreaking and hopeful, hard to read and harder still to put aside.” —The Chronicle Herald

“Blackstrap Hawco is an ambitious book, far-reaching, deliberately complex, blunt, ruthless and lyrical.” —The Telegram

“Brilliant... a loving tribute to the uniqueness of Newfoundland.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“A big, daring, imaginative saga” —The Scotsman

“Its rich detail and realistic dialogue forces the reader to experience the frustration of the disempowered characters, the corroded Atlantic scenery, and the pride that survives.” —Canadian Literature

“Big in every way, it's an ambitious tour de force” —The Glasgow Herald

“Easily the best book of the year and an instant classic” —Ottawa Xpress

Length: 848 pp
Setting: Atlantic Canada



Canadian rights, Random House Canada
UK/Commonweath rights, Harvill Secker

For all other rights contact Kenneth J. Harvey.

Kenneth J. Harvey is the author of eighteen books which have been published in Canada and internationally. He has been nominated for the international Commonwealth Writers Prize; was the winner of the 2004 Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize; and was longlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Kenneth J. Harvey lives in Newfoundland.