A Gradual Ruin
     
 
From acclaimed novelist and Governor General’s Award-winning poet Robert Hilles comes a haunting story about the desperate choices made in wartime, and lives affirmed or shattered in a moment. In the final, chaotic days of the Second World War, Tommy, a young Canadian soldier, is separated from his unit and lost in enemy territory. Seeking shelter among the rotting haystacks and devastated farmhouses of the German countryside, he follows a cry to a bloodied and terrified girl. When he decided to save her from starvation, or worse, Tommy’s life is forever changed. And in 1960s northern Ontario, fourteen-year-old Judith discovers what her mother, Alice, has already learned: that when circumstances and frustrated desire force you from home, sometimes all you can do is begin life afresh. Impetuous, intelligent and suspicious, Judith is on the verge of bringing old mistakes into a new world. These lives are woven into a story at once grand and intimate. Spanning continents and generations, A Gradual Ruin is an engrossing account of lives damaged in the present and those lost in the past. With patience and empathy, Robert Hilles vividly captures the ache for the missing parent or lover, and the guilt for those imperfectly loved, or unintentionally betrayed. From Stalin’s gulags to the farms and paper mills of northern Ontario, A Gradual Ruin probes a life’s purpose, and a heart’s responsibility in a world far beyond our power to control. In the theatre of war as within the confines of family, our lives often turn not on our goodwill or our careful plans, but on the caprice of fate. 
“Very much like Charles Frazier’s novel Cold Mountain. . . . Hilles writes in a sparse, careful style that makes everything that happens seem not only real but inevitable.”—The Gazette (Montreal) “Compelling, emotionally engaging, and intellectually stimulating. The novel ends in a way that manages to be inevitable, surprising and deeply satisfying at the same time: a terrific accomplishment. . . . The story becomes so good, its telling so strong and transparent, that all artifice drops away. . . . Rewarding and enlightening.”—National Post “A tightly written, muscular epic.”—Edmonton Journal “This is a novel about individuals who try to come to terms with the past. The results are quite remarkable. Graphic and mesmerizing in its detail . . . Unforgettable.”—Alistair MacLeod “In a precise, laconic style, Hilles spans large gaps in time and space. He successfully juggles his parallel story lines and juxtaposes the grand sweep of history with the small events that make up family life. . . . A Gradual Ruin seems destined to earn him a national reputation.”—Calgary Herald
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