There Gillmor tracked down the remnants of his grandmother's people, the Rosses, still adherents of their strict Presbyterian religion. In the Shetland Islands, he traced the more dubious legacy of his maternal great-grandfather, Peter Mainland, noted for losing the family farm. Both the Rosses and the Mainlands ended up in Winnipeg at the turn of the century, drawn by the city's boosterish image of renewal. And, improbably, the son of the wastrel found and married the pretend twin. Personal , powerful, funny and moving, The Desire of Every Living Thing is first about Georgina's desire to live an unburdened life.
Desire runs through the book, whether it's sexual desire or the desire to re-create oneself.
Such desire is what populated the west. And, boiled right down, the immigrant experience is about the desire for a better life. In the end, this is the story of the New World, the story of Winnipeg, the story of this immigrant country. Both an evocative family memoir and a brilliant feat of historical imagination, the book's most moving theme is how the discarded past haunts us, how it shapes our lives without us even knowing.