num_pages: 592
description: A mystery and a love story spanning five decades, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an epic portrait of passion and ambition, set against the beautiful, brutal landscape of Newfoundland. In this widely acclaimed novel, Johnston has created two of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: Joey Smallwood, who claws his way up from poverty to become New Foundland's first premier; and Sheilagh Fielding, who renounces her father's wealth to become a popular columnist and writer, a gifted satirist who casts a haunting shadow on Smallwood's life and career.The two meet as children at school and grow to realize that their lives are irreversibly intertwined, bound together by a secret they don't know they share. Smallwood, always on the make, torn between love of country and fear of failure, is as reluctant to trust the private truths of his heart as his rival and savior, Fielding—brilliant, hard-drinking, and unconventionally sexy. Their story ranges from small-town Newfoundland to New York City, from the harrowing ice floes of the seal hunt to the lavish drawing rooms of colonial governors, and combines erudition, comedy, and unflagging narrative brio in a manner reminiscent of John Irving and Charles Dickens. A tragicomic elegy for the "colony of unrequited dreams" that is Newfoundland, Wayne Johnston's masterful tribute to a people and a place establishes him as a novelist who is as profound as he is funny, with an impeccable sense of the intersection where private lives and history collide.
language: English
title: The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
titlecomplete: The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
characters: Joey Smallwood, Sheilagh Fielding
genres: 20th Century, Canada, Book Club, Historical, Canadian Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Fiction
ratings_count: 7326
places: New York City, New York, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
series: Newfoundland Trilogy
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Scotiabank Giller Prize, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: CBC Canada Reads, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Canadian Authors Association Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
publisher: Anchor