Northern Light by Roy Macgregor

Northern Light by Roy Macgregor

NATIONAL BESTSELER
FINALIST 2011 - Ottawa Book Award for Non-Fiction

Roy MacGregor's lifelong fascination with Tom Thomson first led him to write Canoe Lake, a novel inspired by a distant relative's affair with one of Canada's greatest painters. Now, MacGregor breaks new ground, re-examining the mysteries of Thomson's life, loves and violent death in the definitive non-fiction account. Why does a man who died almost a century ago and painted relatively little still have such a grip on our imagination?

The eccentric spinster Winnie Trainor was a fixture of Roy MacGregor's childhood in Huntsville, Ontario. She was considered too odd to be a truly romantic figure in the eyes of the town, but the locals knew that Canada's most famous painter had once been in love with her, and that she had never gotten over his untimely death. She kept some paintings he gave her in a six-quart basket she'd leave with the neighbours on her rare trips out of town, and in the summers she'd make the trip from her family cottage, where Thomson used to stay, on foot to the graveyard up the hill, where fans of the artist occasionally left bouquets. There she would clear away the flowers. After all, as far as anyone knew, he wasn't there: she had arranged at his family's request for him to be exhumed and moved to a cemetery near Owen Sound.

As Roy MacGregor's richly detailed Northern Light reveals, not much is as it seems when it comes to Tom Thomson, the most iconic of Canadian painters. Philandering deadbeat or visionary artist and gentleman, victim of accidental drowning or deliberate murder, the man's myth has grown to obscure the real view -- and the answers to the mysteries are finally revealed in these pages.

From the Hardcover edition.

Roy MacGregor has been involved in hockey all his life. Growing up in Huntsville, Ontario, he competed for several years against a kid named Bobby Orr, who was playing in nearby Parry Sound. He later returned to the game when he and his family settled in Ottawa, where he worked for the Ottawa Citizen and became the Southam National Sports Columnist. He still plays old-timers hockey and has been a minor-hockey coach for more than a decade.

Roy MacGregor is the author of several classics in the literature of hockey. Home Game (written with Ken Dryden) and The Home Team were both number one national bestsellers. He has also written the game's best-known novel, The Last Season. His other books include Road Games, The Seven A.M. Practice, and A Life in the Bush, a memoir of his father. He has also written books about native leaders and the Ottawa Valley.

Roy MacGregor is now a senior columnist for the National Post. He and his wife, Ellen, live in Kanata, Ontario. They have four children, Kerry, Christine, Jocelyn, and Gordon.

You can talk to Roy MacGregor at www.screechowls.com

From the Hardcover edition.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780307357403
ISBN 10	0307357406
Title	Northern Light
Author	Roy Macgregor
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House Canada
Year published	2011-09-06
Number of pages	400
Prizes	Short-listed for Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction 2011
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable