The Cruelest Month

Ernest Buckler’s literary stature was established by the publication of The Mountain and the Valley, which in the author’s own lifetime is already entrenched as a Canadian classic. The same remarkable qualities that led to that acclaim are abundantly present in this second novel: the ever-renewing wondering regard for nature; the incomparable portrayal of human relationships; the complex prose with its carefully chosen words expressing in a cluster of meaning the full impact of an idea or situation.

Against a deceptively simple background Ernest Buckler weaves a complicated and intricate design. The setting is a country guesthouse in Nova Scotia -- a kind of dream haven for getting away from it all. Not every passing traveler is welcome. The price of admission is intelligence. So they come, the brilliant, disillusioned ones -- from New York and Connecticut, and from nearer Halifax -- each with his private reason for seeking to escape.

It was a dangerous game they played... while the harsh April winds stripped bare their pretentions and the hot sun seared their exposed wounds, inflaming passions they scarcely knew existed, and irrevocably changing their lives... To classify this novel as a work of brilliant analytical insight is t o tell only part of the story. Each page vibrates with a liveliness that is both physical and mental; the book sparkles with wit and variety.

The Cruelest Month is an unforgettable literary experience.