num_pages: 240
description: Mahatma Grafton is a disillusioned university graduate burdened with a famous name and suffering from the curse of his generation  a total lack of interest in the state of the world. The son of a retired railway porter from Winnipeg he returns home for a job as a reporter with The Winnipeg Herald. Soon Mahatma is scoping local stories of murder and mayhem breaking a promise to himself to avoid writing victim stories.As Mahatma is unexpectedly drawn into the inflammatory issue of French-language rights in Manitoba with all its racial side-channels he is surprised to find that he has a social conscience. Combating his bosss flair for weaving hysteria into his stories Mahatma learns that to stay afloat he must remain true to himself.Populated with colourful characters  including an unlikely welfare crusader a burned-out fellow reporter a French-language-rights activist and a visiting journalist from Cameroon  Some Great Thing is a fascinating portrait of a major urban newspaper and a deeply perceptive story of one mans coming of age.
language: English
title: Some Great Thing
publisher: Turnstone Press