Some Great Thing
by Colin McAdam

1-55192-805-1
CDN $22.95 paper

1-55192-695-4
CDN $34.95 cloth

Raincoast

ABOUT THE BOOK
SOME GREAT THING by COLIN MCADAM

Winner of the 2005 First Novel Award (Books in Canada/Amazon.ca)
“The First Novel Award has become synonymous with celebrated Canadian authors and excellent works,” Sarah Jane Gunter, the head of Amazon.ca, said in a statement.

First given out in 1976, the First Novel Award, with a $7,500 prize, is the largest prize amount given to a first novel.

2005 Finalist for The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize

2004 Finalist for Governor General’s Literary Award:
“A bravura accomplishment of voice and style, a burst of pure energy — McAdam’s vigorous prose, dynamic narrative and brilliant cast of characters is built like one of Jerry McGuinty’s structures: a solid fucken house.” (Jury’s comments)

The time is the seventies. The place is Ottawa, a developing city ready for the taking. Two men from very different backgrounds take up the challenge: Jerry McGuinty, plasterer turned builder, a simple, self-made man; and Simon Struthers, whose inherited wealth and position cannot fill the hollowness he feels inside. As the men’s careers and successes run parallel, we see how love is suffocated by work and how individuals are crushed by greed and “progress.”

With skill, energy, humour and poetry, Colin McAdam creates a world of ambition and desire, power and corruption. Some Great Thing is one of the most thrillingly original novels in years.

PRAISE FOR SOME GREAT THING:
“An extraordinary, powerful novel—technically ambitious, passionate and beautifully observed. Filled with the truth of human frailty, the mystery of craft and the stark bewilderment of love.” —A. L. Kennedy

“Some Great Thing is just about as fresh as it gets. Colin McAdam has taken a jackhammer to the modern novel and come up with something bright and strong and new.”
—Rupert Thomson, author of The Book of Revelation

FROM SOME GREAT THING:
“What I should say is my name is Jerry and I built this house. Four-square plaster walls, buttressed from toe to tip with an iron goddamn will, my friend, standing proud proud proud. I hammered it into the ground and I pushed it up to the sky, and with the grace of God and the sweat of men I will build a thousand more.

My name is Jerry and my son’s name is Jerry, and that’s because my imagination was always saved for my work. And Jerry, my son my son, is the life hope love and death of me.

Please tell me if you see him.”