Baltimore's mansion
Subtitle: a memoir
By: Wayne Johnston.
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
Subjects: Johnston, Wayne -- Homes and haunts -- Newfoundland; Johnston, Wayne -- Childhood and youth; Johnston, Wayne -- Family; Novelists, Canadian -- 20th century -- Family relationships; Novelists, Canadian -- 20th century -- Biography; Fathers and sons -- Newfoundland and Labrador; Family -- Newfoundland and Labrador; Newfoundland and Labrador -- Intellectual life -- 20th century; Newfoundland and Labrador -- Social life and customs; Newfoundland and Labrador -- Biography
Genres: Biography.
Description: "Charlie Johnston is the famed blacksmith of Ferryland, a Catholic colony founded by Lord Baltimore in the 1620s on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. For his prowess at the forge, he is considered as necessary as a parish priest at local weddings. But he must spend the first cold hours of every workday fishing at sea with his sons, one of whom, the author's father, Arthur, vows that as an adult he will never look to the sea for his livelihood.

In the heady months leading to the referendum that results in Newfoundland being "inducted" into Canada, Art leaves the island for college and an eventual career with Canadian Fisheries, studying and regulating a livelihood he and his father once pursued. He parts on mysterious terms with Charlie, who dies while he's away, and Art is plunged into a lifelong battle with the personal demons that haunted the end of their relationship.

Years later, Wayne prepares to leave at the same age Art was when he said good-bye to Charlie, and old patterns threaten to repeat themselves."--BOOK JACKET.