Resurrection of Joseph Bourne: or A Word or Two on Those Port Annie Miracle

In this new edition of Jack Hodgins’ Governor General’s Award-winning novel, the reader is taken into the bizarre and outlandish life of Port Annie on the west coast of Vancouver Island, a town that keeps slipping into the ocean and whose people have long been in a continuous slumber. Every thing changes when a beautiful sea nymph is washed ashore from a stranded freighter and the town explodes with possibilities. The mayor installs a giant cactus to attract the tourist trade and the Kick-and-Kill beer parlour becomes home to wonderfully anarchic events. But there is also Joseph Bourne himself, once a world-renowned writer and healer who has become a bitter recluse. Bourne fears that the mysterious woman is after him. And so it would appear. But his death and resurrection allow him to regain his healing powers. With Hodgins’ well known energetic prose and his comic characterisations, this novel combines the ordinary with the wondrous.