SAN JOSEF
Author: Harold Macy
For Clayton Monroe, the last hope for refuge is a struggling setttlement at the far northwest corner of Vancouver Island. San Josef is his sanctuary from the imagined demons and real enemies who have pursued him for three decades, from the Civil War battlefields of Virginia and across the plains of Kansas to the gold rush gateway of Seattle.
For Anika Frederickson, San Josef is her new home and her dream, a now failing community built on the promises of provincial government officials. The future of her colony, carved from the coastal wilderness by the tenacity of her fellow Danish idealists, is as uncertain as the storms that batter their farms.
A man like Monroe leaves a burning trail behind him, and the autumn winds of 1897 bring a new arrival to Cape Scott, sparking an inevitable challenge to Clayton’s safety and Anika’s family.
At San Josef, the rainforest and the river will bear witness.
- Fiction
- ISBN 978-1-7751659-8-9 (paperback)
- ISBN 978-1-7751659-9-6 (ebook)
- 5.5″ x 8.5″
- Publication date: September 2019
- Paperback: CA $20.00 / US $14.95
- Ebook: CA $3.95 / US $2.95
In Harold Macy’s remarkable novel, Vancouver Island’s wild and beautiful northernmost region is the stage for an intriguing tale. San Josef does what novels do best—brings us in close to witness an unfolding drama (both personal and communal) that we can believe in. As in many of the best stories, much is at stake here for both the main characters and their community. At the same time, much is to be enjoyed by the reader.
San Josef is the story of a U.S. civil war deserter adrift in a rainforest, a muleskinner seeking revenge and a Danish woman living in a remote colony. A deep and sometimes dark novel where hope goes astray but is never lost. The characters are as complex as a spider’s web, the language poetic and the environment a tangible force.
This is a good book. Read that first page and be transported to a very specific place. Read the next pages and follow characters in a wide scope that encompasses history, geography, and hopes for escape, revenge,being forgotten and being healed. All that in 200 some pages. Freaks me out how writers can do that.