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Cape Breton Road
At nineteen, Innis Corbett is transplanted from his home near Boston and suddenly finds himself back in the remote Cape Breton community where he was born, the reluctant and unwelcome guest of his uncle Starr. Innis had developed an addiction for stealing expensive cars (not for money but for pleasure) and for the marijuana he helps his best friend to sell. When bad habits catch up with him, he is deported to Canada, a punishment worse than prison.
Innis is unimpressed by his uncle, who gave up his dreams of leaving the island to repair televisions, chase women, drive a Lada and grow nostalgic on rum. Desperate to get away, Innis hatches the only escape plan he can, and starts to grow a secret cash crop of marijuana and looks for a car to steal. He bides his time smoking pot and doing whatever odd jobs he has to, full of unnamed need and pent-up anger. When Starr’s current girlfriend, an attractive woman in her late thirties, comes to stay while fleeing another relationship, Innis’ deep sense of longing fixes on her. He feels fierce desire, but also something he recognises as good and true. Starr cautions him, and a bitter jealous rivalry begins to rage between them, violence lying just under the surface. As summer arrives, Innis’ suffocation and the tension between the two men are palpable.
Though life in this small community bound by memory and blood cannot cure Innis immediately of his anger, the rugged landscape does work a change on him. He takes on the challenge of the wild and harsh north woods where a man can get lost, learns the names of plants and wildlife, sketches and studies the natural world, and diligently cares for his illegal seedlings. As he grows stronger, he faces himself in the mirror and feels an emerging sense of self-worth and coming manhood. He realises he is learning an enjoyment of hard work and its rewards, although his crop might be less worthy than those of his predecessors. Affectionately sheltering the plants from bad weather and hungry deer, he muses, “Was there a Gaelic word for pot?”
Cape Breton has spawned a wealth of contemporary literature, from Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall On Your Knees to Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief and Lynn Coady’s Strange Heaven . The region’s rugged landscapes, rural life and distinctive Gaelic traditions converging with modern social pressures have captured the attention of readers internationally; as they have in the work of other Atlantic Canada authors such as Michael Crummey, Wayne Johnston and David Adams Richards. MacDonald set his novel in the 1970s, when a country area of Cape Breton could still be a truly isolated backwater, the phone service on a party-line system and listening-in a regular pastime. “I needed to create a world that was much more cut off, where it would seem like exile to Innis and where he could never be alone or anonymous.”
Innis recalls his parents’ fights about “down home”, how they would one day love it to tears and the next day complain how it had held them back. Much as he wants to get off the Cape Breton Road, it may be that all the emotions that make life worth living — “love and anger and disappointment and hope” — lead back to the island. Cape Breton Road is a compelling coming-of-age story raw with beauty and emotion.
Innis is unimpressed by his uncle, who gave up his dreams of leaving the island to repair televisions, chase women, drive a Lada and grow nostalgic on rum. Desperate to get away, Innis hatches the only escape plan he can, and starts to grow a secret cash crop of marijuana and looks for a car to steal. He bides his time smoking pot and doing whatever odd jobs he has to, full of unnamed need and pent-up anger. When Starr’s current girlfriend, an attractive woman in her late thirties, comes to stay while fleeing another relationship, Innis’ deep sense of longing fixes on her. He feels fierce desire, but also something he recognises as good and true. Starr cautions him, and a bitter jealous rivalry begins to rage between them, violence lying just under the surface. As summer arrives, Innis’ suffocation and the tension between the two men are palpable.
Though life in this small community bound by memory and blood cannot cure Innis immediately of his anger, the rugged landscape does work a change on him. He takes on the challenge of the wild and harsh north woods where a man can get lost, learns the names of plants and wildlife, sketches and studies the natural world, and diligently cares for his illegal seedlings. As he grows stronger, he faces himself in the mirror and feels an emerging sense of self-worth and coming manhood. He realises he is learning an enjoyment of hard work and its rewards, although his crop might be less worthy than those of his predecessors. Affectionately sheltering the plants from bad weather and hungry deer, he muses, “Was there a Gaelic word for pot?”
Cape Breton has spawned a wealth of contemporary literature, from Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall On Your Knees to Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief and Lynn Coady’s Strange Heaven . The region’s rugged landscapes, rural life and distinctive Gaelic traditions converging with modern social pressures have captured the attention of readers internationally; as they have in the work of other Atlantic Canada authors such as Michael Crummey, Wayne Johnston and David Adams Richards. MacDonald set his novel in the 1970s, when a country area of Cape Breton could still be a truly isolated backwater, the phone service on a party-line system and listening-in a regular pastime. “I needed to create a world that was much more cut off, where it would seem like exile to Innis and where he could never be alone or anonymous.”
Innis recalls his parents’ fights about “down home”, how they would one day love it to tears and the next day complain how it had held them back. Much as he wants to get off the Cape Breton Road, it may be that all the emotions that make life worth living — “love and anger and disappointment and hope” — lead back to the island. Cape Breton Road is a compelling coming-of-age story raw with beauty and emotion.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
10 people are currently reading
170 people want to read
About the author
D.R. MacDonald
7 books12 followersD. R. MacDonald is a Canadian-American writer who publishes novels and short stories.
Born in Boularderie, Nova Scotia and raised in Ohio, he is a professor emeritus of creative writing at Stanford University. He still spends summers at the family homestead in Cape Breton Island, which he purchased in 1971, and his fiction is set in Cape Breton.
His novel Lauchlin of the Bad Heart was a longlisted nominee for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2007.
Born in Boularderie, Nova Scotia and raised in Ohio, he is a professor emeritus of creative writing at Stanford University. He still spends summers at the family homestead in Cape Breton Island, which he purchased in 1971, and his fiction is set in Cape Breton.
His novel Lauchlin of the Bad Heart was a longlisted nominee for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
June 26, 2017
There he was, lost. The sun he'd kept on his left shoulder had gone, absorbed into a sky cold as milk, and the wind that he'd remembered as east, east on his face, had dodged somehow around, leaping at him in different directions, confusing him in showers of dry leaves. Small clearings of light in deep spruce and fir and stripped hardwoods mocked him as he plunged first towards one, then another…City boy without a city.
It is the 1970s and the long-haired Innis Corbett certainly is lost -- born in Cape Breton, but raised in a Boston suburb, Innis was deported back to Canada after a string of luxury car thefts. Forced to move in with a begrudging uncle he doesn't know, in a wooded setting both foreign and remote, the 19 year old Innis is forced to decide what kind of man he will become.
As Cape Breton Road begins, Innis is removing the brush from a clearing in the woods where he has planned to transplant some pot plants that he has taking root in his uncle's attic. Assured that a dozen plants could earn him ten grand, and believing his plan to be without risk, Innis sees the crop as his ticket off the island -- away from the hard-drinking, womanising uncle and the nosy but well-meaning strangers who all know more of his history, what people he belongs to, than Innis himself does -- and once off Cape Breton, Innis would finally have a chance to start over with a clean slate. Although at first impulsive and bitter (and especially resentful about the way that his mother could have allowed him to be deported), as Innis explores the woods and builds his body up through hard work, he develops a respect for nature and himself that bodes well for his future. When Uncle Starr has his latest girlfriend, Claire, move into the home, the sexual tension builds up to the point where Innis doesn't know if he can wait for his cash crop to mature before he's forced to either escape or explode.
By the time the book ends, , Innis has lost all of the ground he had gained and reminded me of Holden Caulfield in the way that, on the verge of becoming a man, neither character was able to control his impulses and behaved in a knowingly self-destructive manner. Like a typical anti-hero, I wanted for Innis to succeed at growing and selling the pot so that he could get that second chance, but as a well developed and sympathetic character, I hoped that Innis could see that the ancestral home he never knew might be where he belonged after all; that the slate he worked to clean might be the one worth having.
In Cape Breton Road, D. R. MacDonald writes beautiful and naturalistic scenes of the woods and the water, capturing nuances of light and shadow and mood. So too does he capture the nuances of people and relationships and their ties to the land and each other. Thoughts and memories are brought up organically alongside the current action (none of that clumsy "it reminded him of the time when…") and small vignettes capture the setting in a way that transported me there:
There was no person anywhere, but a little building off behind a cyclone fence, and further along on the other side of a small lake, a solitary trailer, accessible only by a causeway with a locked cyclone gate. A day's workclothes beat like drab flags on a line strung from the trailer to a pole. Shirt, trousers, socks. Something forlorn in all that, fluttering out flat in a cold wind, the guy shut away inside the trailer by himself, his lonely stuff hanging outside, his underwear.
MacDonald is a masterful writer and I am humbled to have not met him before -- more people should be reading his work than is recorded on goodreads. Cape Breton Road is filled with fascinating people (I especially liked the aged Dan Rory of the second sight) and intriguing events (I especially liked the motley gathering of the clans at the ostensible Gaelic college) -- and everyone and everything fits together just so; masterful in the way that it slowly captured my imagination and touched my heart with such seemingly effortless prose. Like Newfoundland, Cape Breton must be one of those "thin places" that the old folks talk about; for although the setting of this book is far away in time and place, it feels like it's sitting, just there, at the end of my fingertips; timeless; a place I could gladly visit on the page of a book again and again.
November 5, 2012
While the descriptions of scenery are certainly beautiful, this novel lacks momentum. Innis's struggle as a young man ostracized from his hometown is interwoven with long passages of intricately described action, setting, and disgruntled resentment from the protagonist. This leaves the reader to suffer through the book as Innis suffers through his first, long, Cape Breton winter. Innis' self-pitying attitude separates the reader from engaging with the protagonist's struggle. The pace of action is equivalent to the rate of forest growth. Cape Breton Road is a story for someone interested in landscape literature, rather than anyone looking for an encapsulating read.
May 22, 2020
If I had been told the premise of this story, especially that we would basically be living a guy’s head who wasn’t happy himself inside his own head or with the situation he has ended up in, I wouldn’t have even started. But I didn’t know and … surprise, it works!
It more than works, it is sad, beautiful, revealing. I also love the tidbits of Cape Breton culture, not thrust upon the reader, but simply carefully placed. And just as something special to me, the author manages to describe certain winter events that I have witnessed but couldn’t figure out how to put into words.
Quotes that caught my eye
Overhead, the power line, two widely spaced cables, sagged gracefully toward a wooden pylon visible on the next rise, then disappeared into the snowgrayed air. (2)
The coming dark was above the snow and the woods at night asked things of you he didn’t have. (8)
He was handy to his needs—pipe and tobacco pouch on a small table, magazines, binoculars. (9)
Snow twirled powdery off the toolshed roof. The distance between houses widened in the winter months, the year-round residents fewer now, some houses empty until summer. (32) He could be describing my village.
A tree stump, so often soaked and dried out it had opened out like a book, long laminations of wooden pages. (47)
…the feathery, spiraling snow, the stark silence in simple lines, black against white, and the dark mouth of the spring, that little pattering cave, the faint pawprints. (48)
Ice, everywhere, every object he could make out was thickened, confected with ice. And the silence, like something had just come to rest a million miles deep…. Everything had been stilled so quickly time dangled or hung: there was not a tick or a drip anywhere. The rain had been caught, captured by all solid things, wind-whipped and frozen onto their shapes. It had blown like hair from the raingutter above him, rigid now, icicles angled as the wind had left them. Innis inhaled the cold, utterly quiet air. A sliver thaw they called this, Innis had heard about it, but now, under a piercing moon the clouds had set free, the solitary trees were like teetering, translucent sculptures, laden with a lively wight some could not hold, their crowns bent to the ground, their trunks bowed, gracefully tensed. Innis walked out into it, dead grass crunching under his shoes, every rut and depression giving way like delicate windows, every bare bush and cane turned to crystal. (85)
The precentors were standing, clearing their pipes for another Psalm, but this time the congregation, still seated, joined them an another precentor led, a man with sandy grey hair who ignored the Psalm book in his hand, putting out the long slow line and the worshippers picked it up and sang it back, and the volume rose now with all the added voices, old voices gathering strength, but there was something else: they had begun to rock slowly, almost imperceptibly, as they sang, Dan Rory too, and the others around him, even the girl slightly, she could not resist, Innis himself could barely hold back when he detected a slow tapping that soon turned into a measured thump of hidden Sunday shoes, at first only here and there as if some were shy or it had been so long they had to be roused to it, no hand clapping or wailing or crying out, only this diffident thumping of feet out of sight, marking the beat, to Innis it was the rhythm of his axe, of his tree felling, this cadence of their singing. It echoed something deep in him that went a long way back, this foot beat, hie could feel it even though he didn’t know what it was and his foot was going, if lightly, discreetly, after all this was beyond him, before his time. These people did not rock in trances or weep on their knees, this was the only passion you’d see from them in this holy house, this was their opening up, rocking in the cradle of the old tongue. (206)
Vocabulary I didn’t quite get
Collas: ‘And it would, by fall, light his way out of here, though at the moment collas swaying in the sun were not easy to conjure.’ (1)
‘…nothing worse in winter than coming into a cold empty house, he said, no fire or food in sight, my old dad used to call that feeling it gave you fuar-larach. (87)
I found clachan online but the only meaning listed is a tiny village. I think there’s a different meaning shown here, LOL. ‘I can see him in the kitchen there, naked as the day he was born, hands clapped over his clachan, doing a little dance in front of the stove,…’ (12)
‘That’s a snake buckle. We liked those. Mheall an nathair Eubh.’ (13) It doesn’t show up as a saying, so, even knowing that such practice is foolish, I did a word by word translation, working backwards (the reason for which will become evident): Eubh is ‘shout’ or a girl’s name, similar to Eve; nathair is snake, which makes sense in the context; and Mheall is … as a noun ‘lump’ or ‘hill’ but as a verb ‘deceive, trick, cheat, seduce, tempt, etc. Ah, so this is something about Eve and serpent in the garden of Eden? He does mention Eden few lines later but they don’t seem connected.
‘He’d pushed the rum bottle across the table, Dìreach boinneag,… (26) The first word has a whole ton of meanings; the second I couldn’t find anywhere.
Might ‘thrash’ have been a typo? ‘He piled the thrash for burning,…’ (64)
Patch grass popped up in mud, mingled with dead leaves where fresh deer hooves sank deep. (153) Is ‘patch grass’ a species or plant?
What doesn’t ring true to me anyway....
“We could go for a swim, Starr, down in that nice cove,” she said, “that nice sandy beach.”
“It’ll be dark as pitch pretty soon.” (158)
Uh, unlikely unless I have completely misunderstood where and when they are, i.e., far to the north and close to mid-summer.
It more than works, it is sad, beautiful, revealing. I also love the tidbits of Cape Breton culture, not thrust upon the reader, but simply carefully placed. And just as something special to me, the author manages to describe certain winter events that I have witnessed but couldn’t figure out how to put into words.
Quotes that caught my eye
Overhead, the power line, two widely spaced cables, sagged gracefully toward a wooden pylon visible on the next rise, then disappeared into the snowgrayed air. (2)
The coming dark was above the snow and the woods at night asked things of you he didn’t have. (8)
He was handy to his needs—pipe and tobacco pouch on a small table, magazines, binoculars. (9)
Snow twirled powdery off the toolshed roof. The distance between houses widened in the winter months, the year-round residents fewer now, some houses empty until summer. (32) He could be describing my village.
A tree stump, so often soaked and dried out it had opened out like a book, long laminations of wooden pages. (47)
…the feathery, spiraling snow, the stark silence in simple lines, black against white, and the dark mouth of the spring, that little pattering cave, the faint pawprints. (48)
Ice, everywhere, every object he could make out was thickened, confected with ice. And the silence, like something had just come to rest a million miles deep…. Everything had been stilled so quickly time dangled or hung: there was not a tick or a drip anywhere. The rain had been caught, captured by all solid things, wind-whipped and frozen onto their shapes. It had blown like hair from the raingutter above him, rigid now, icicles angled as the wind had left them. Innis inhaled the cold, utterly quiet air. A sliver thaw they called this, Innis had heard about it, but now, under a piercing moon the clouds had set free, the solitary trees were like teetering, translucent sculptures, laden with a lively wight some could not hold, their crowns bent to the ground, their trunks bowed, gracefully tensed. Innis walked out into it, dead grass crunching under his shoes, every rut and depression giving way like delicate windows, every bare bush and cane turned to crystal. (85)
The precentors were standing, clearing their pipes for another Psalm, but this time the congregation, still seated, joined them an another precentor led, a man with sandy grey hair who ignored the Psalm book in his hand, putting out the long slow line and the worshippers picked it up and sang it back, and the volume rose now with all the added voices, old voices gathering strength, but there was something else: they had begun to rock slowly, almost imperceptibly, as they sang, Dan Rory too, and the others around him, even the girl slightly, she could not resist, Innis himself could barely hold back when he detected a slow tapping that soon turned into a measured thump of hidden Sunday shoes, at first only here and there as if some were shy or it had been so long they had to be roused to it, no hand clapping or wailing or crying out, only this diffident thumping of feet out of sight, marking the beat, to Innis it was the rhythm of his axe, of his tree felling, this cadence of their singing. It echoed something deep in him that went a long way back, this foot beat, hie could feel it even though he didn’t know what it was and his foot was going, if lightly, discreetly, after all this was beyond him, before his time. These people did not rock in trances or weep on their knees, this was the only passion you’d see from them in this holy house, this was their opening up, rocking in the cradle of the old tongue. (206)
Vocabulary I didn’t quite get
Collas: ‘And it would, by fall, light his way out of here, though at the moment collas swaying in the sun were not easy to conjure.’ (1)
‘…nothing worse in winter than coming into a cold empty house, he said, no fire or food in sight, my old dad used to call that feeling it gave you fuar-larach. (87)
I found clachan online but the only meaning listed is a tiny village. I think there’s a different meaning shown here, LOL. ‘I can see him in the kitchen there, naked as the day he was born, hands clapped over his clachan, doing a little dance in front of the stove,…’ (12)
‘That’s a snake buckle. We liked those. Mheall an nathair Eubh.’ (13) It doesn’t show up as a saying, so, even knowing that such practice is foolish, I did a word by word translation, working backwards (the reason for which will become evident): Eubh is ‘shout’ or a girl’s name, similar to Eve; nathair is snake, which makes sense in the context; and Mheall is … as a noun ‘lump’ or ‘hill’ but as a verb ‘deceive, trick, cheat, seduce, tempt, etc. Ah, so this is something about Eve and serpent in the garden of Eden? He does mention Eden few lines later but they don’t seem connected.
‘He’d pushed the rum bottle across the table, Dìreach boinneag,… (26) The first word has a whole ton of meanings; the second I couldn’t find anywhere.
Might ‘thrash’ have been a typo? ‘He piled the thrash for burning,…’ (64)
Patch grass popped up in mud, mingled with dead leaves where fresh deer hooves sank deep. (153) Is ‘patch grass’ a species or plant?
What doesn’t ring true to me anyway....
“We could go for a swim, Starr, down in that nice cove,” she said, “that nice sandy beach.”
“It’ll be dark as pitch pretty soon.” (158)
Uh, unlikely unless I have completely misunderstood where and when they are, i.e., far to the north and close to mid-summer.
November 6, 2018
"... he couldn't be fooled anymore by roads that went nowhere. He'd been trying to get off that Cape Breton Road, hadn't he, the one that ran from here to Boston and beyond and back again, a great circle of sentiment and memory, of love and anger, and disappointment and hope, leading back to this Island"
I really hate to rate books. Somebody very talented shed blood, sweat, and tears to create this and I feel so unworthy. Like I said, I either love them, hate them, or just feel nothing. I sometimes feel a little stupid when I just don't get it. I wanted to love this book so much and I really gave it a go. It took me soooooooooo long to read it -- and that's never good. The writing was beautiful and descriptive and sometimes very funny (the Gathering of the Clans was hilarious) and sometimes very stark. I could imagine the forest and the water and the people and the unending winter. So fun trying to figure out where St Aubin was supposed to be through the points on DR MacDonald's "map". I am from Cape Breton so I was particularly enamored of the way MacDonald wrote about my favourite place in the world. These are all great things but, it wasn't enough. I didn't love the story. I didn't understand what the point was. Was it really supposed to be so bleak? Is he trying to convey that you are stuck with no way out? I didn't care at all about the main characters. I did love Dan Rory of the second sight and kind Father Lesperance. I could have done with more of them and less of Innis, Starr, and Claire.
If you read the blurb on the inside book jacket, that's this story in a nut shell, pretty much. Am I missing something? Was it about how Innis, like every other 17-year-old Cape Bretoner, wants off the Island 'cuz we all know the Island's way too small and everybody knows your bidness (true story with the party lines.) But, like we all find out, our heart never really leaves and always wants to be back home. Was it a story about an uneducated, pot smoking, car stealing, lonely, bored 17-year-old boy who tries to take the easy way out of town but can't even do that right 'cuz his Uncle is pretty much a child-in-a-man's body with the added bonus of hugely jealous and hugely belittling as well as what a lazy ass he was (!what a catch for Claire!) which made me wonder throughout the story: Why did he agree to take Innis in the first place? He never spent any time with him. Never really talked to him, always at him. So depressing. I felt bad the whole story through but kept hoping right up to the end that something would change for Innis, that he could start fresh, and make a life for himself. But, like Innis, there was no way out of the bleak, dark hole that was this story.
P.S. Nobody calls Sydney Mines "The Mines" and if you ever find yourself there, please don't do so. You will sound like a complete asshole. After the 500th time I read "The Mines" I wanted to throw this book out the window. But I didn't. I finished the whole entire thing. It kind of drained me. Not in a good way.
P.P.S. I am from Sydney Mines 🤣 It really struck a bad chord with me so I had to go there.
I really hate to rate books. Somebody very talented shed blood, sweat, and tears to create this and I feel so unworthy. Like I said, I either love them, hate them, or just feel nothing. I sometimes feel a little stupid when I just don't get it. I wanted to love this book so much and I really gave it a go. It took me soooooooooo long to read it -- and that's never good. The writing was beautiful and descriptive and sometimes very funny (the Gathering of the Clans was hilarious) and sometimes very stark. I could imagine the forest and the water and the people and the unending winter. So fun trying to figure out where St Aubin was supposed to be through the points on DR MacDonald's "map". I am from Cape Breton so I was particularly enamored of the way MacDonald wrote about my favourite place in the world. These are all great things but, it wasn't enough. I didn't love the story. I didn't understand what the point was. Was it really supposed to be so bleak? Is he trying to convey that you are stuck with no way out? I didn't care at all about the main characters. I did love Dan Rory of the second sight and kind Father Lesperance. I could have done with more of them and less of Innis, Starr, and Claire.
If you read the blurb on the inside book jacket, that's this story in a nut shell, pretty much. Am I missing something? Was it about how Innis, like every other 17-year-old Cape Bretoner, wants off the Island 'cuz we all know the Island's way too small and everybody knows your bidness (true story with the party lines.) But, like we all find out, our heart never really leaves and always wants to be back home. Was it a story about an uneducated, pot smoking, car stealing, lonely, bored 17-year-old boy who tries to take the easy way out of town but can't even do that right 'cuz his Uncle is pretty much a child-in-a-man's body with the added bonus of hugely jealous and hugely belittling as well as what a lazy ass he was (!what a catch for Claire!) which made me wonder throughout the story: Why did he agree to take Innis in the first place? He never spent any time with him. Never really talked to him, always at him. So depressing. I felt bad the whole story through but kept hoping right up to the end that something would change for Innis, that he could start fresh, and make a life for himself. But, like Innis, there was no way out of the bleak, dark hole that was this story.
P.S. Nobody calls Sydney Mines "The Mines" and if you ever find yourself there, please don't do so. You will sound like a complete asshole. After the 500th time I read "The Mines" I wanted to throw this book out the window. But I didn't. I finished the whole entire thing. It kind of drained me. Not in a good way.
P.P.S. I am from Sydney Mines 🤣 It really struck a bad chord with me so I had to go there.
December 25, 2011
This was my first book by DR MacDonald, and it won't be my last. I live in CB, and have read several of A. MacLeod's collections, MacDonald's novel compared well, and similarly on many levels, which I think is not too bad to say. At the same time, he has his own voice and way of looking at the island and its people. He tells the story of essentially the same woods/maritime/farming culture and geography (west CB vs boulardarie island) as Mr. MacLeod, yet through a different and unique pair of eyes. I don't mean that to sound as simple as it reads...it's like two microscopes revealing different interpretations of the same slide. For me awesome!
I think this is MacDonald's first novel and appreciate the work he put into pulling his ouevre into the longer format. A bit of splunking on the net found me a piece from CBC where he talked about his writing and how he does it....sits down and pens initial and later drafts in longhand then works it over and over like a master artisan on the forge. Reading his description of his working process is inspiring, he leaves the keys to success lying on the table with a note that says, essentially, "hardwork, start writing, then rewrite." Ouch and touche.
A word about the ending. I admit to peeking at comments about it from a couple of GR's disappointed readers before before finishing. I continued reading, wondering why. I now understand the sentiment but enjoyed the denouement myself. Yes it was abrupt. But not so much as to be crude or impenetrable. The loose ends can be read in different ways. Innis could well have perished in his mad dash through the bush, that madness has killed many a person, and he had more than that buzzing his brain to bits after poisoning his uncle's well. Yet, I don't think he was totally lost, in either sense. He was a good man, he regretted his actions, he is on his way into hell but sees for the first time the truth and love of Dan Rory and his lesson that kin can break stones. Somehow the girl hitchhiker, the last person he meets, may have finally broke Claire's hold on his soul. I for one hope the fox was a dog and there was a light burning for Innis in a doorway in those woods as his strong young legs carried him through the mess he had made.
I think this is MacDonald's first novel and appreciate the work he put into pulling his ouevre into the longer format. A bit of splunking on the net found me a piece from CBC where he talked about his writing and how he does it....sits down and pens initial and later drafts in longhand then works it over and over like a master artisan on the forge. Reading his description of his working process is inspiring, he leaves the keys to success lying on the table with a note that says, essentially, "hardwork, start writing, then rewrite." Ouch and touche.
A word about the ending. I admit to peeking at comments about it from a couple of GR's disappointed readers before before finishing. I continued reading, wondering why. I now understand the sentiment but enjoyed the denouement myself. Yes it was abrupt. But not so much as to be crude or impenetrable. The loose ends can be read in different ways. Innis could well have perished in his mad dash through the bush, that madness has killed many a person, and he had more than that buzzing his brain to bits after poisoning his uncle's well. Yet, I don't think he was totally lost, in either sense. He was a good man, he regretted his actions, he is on his way into hell but sees for the first time the truth and love of Dan Rory and his lesson that kin can break stones. Somehow the girl hitchhiker, the last person he meets, may have finally broke Claire's hold on his soul. I for one hope the fox was a dog and there was a light burning for Innis in a doorway in those woods as his strong young legs carried him through the mess he had made.
June 21, 2019
I really liked parts of this book, but ultimately the ending was very frustrating.
Part of it is in keeping with the narrator's character, but it did not end up ringing true to the character he had become nor did it leave one feeling satisfied.
Part of it is in keeping with the narrator's character, but it did not end up ringing true to the character he had become nor did it leave one feeling satisfied.
October 25, 2022
The protagonist is a whiny, conniving, self-entitled, self-indulgent, garbage excuse for a person. He spends all of his time and energy trying to figure out how to get around the system and get over on people while actively rejecting and sneering at anyone and anything that tries to support or help him.
And I, the reader, am supposed to what? Feel sympathy, empathy, care for this character?
I could need even bring myself to feel interested in this protagonist. Aside from being horrible, the character was completely flat. He has the same two or three thoughts, over, and over again with no real growth or self reflection, or the latter of which centred entirely on 'woe is me! how hard done by I am! Go away idiot who is at least trying to do something with his life I am so much above all of that!'. There is nothing in this character that was engaging on a human level nor anything engaging on an 'at least he is interesting to read about' level.
The other two main characters were equally flat and uninteresting. Some of the more peripheral characters could have been interesting but they had such small roles in the book it is difficult to tell.
Other reviewers have noted disappoint in this book because they really enjoyed other MacDonald novels. For me, this is my first book by this author. Because others have said MacDonald's other work is so much better, I might at some point give another of his books a try, but I would never go to seek one out and am not adding any more to my TBR list.
And I, the reader, am supposed to what? Feel sympathy, empathy, care for this character?
I could need even bring myself to feel interested in this protagonist. Aside from being horrible, the character was completely flat. He has the same two or three thoughts, over, and over again with no real growth or self reflection, or the latter of which centred entirely on 'woe is me! how hard done by I am! Go away idiot who is at least trying to do something with his life I am so much above all of that!'. There is nothing in this character that was engaging on a human level nor anything engaging on an 'at least he is interesting to read about' level.
The other two main characters were equally flat and uninteresting. Some of the more peripheral characters could have been interesting but they had such small roles in the book it is difficult to tell.
Other reviewers have noted disappoint in this book because they really enjoyed other MacDonald novels. For me, this is my first book by this author. Because others have said MacDonald's other work is so much better, I might at some point give another of his books a try, but I would never go to seek one out and am not adding any more to my TBR list.
September 27, 2021
Exiled from Boston due to car theft, and without an United States citizenship, the late-teenager Innis arrives on St. Aubin (based, I think, on Boularderie Island) to live with his uncle. As it turns out, this is the ancestral home of his family, and the people around know exactly who his people are, and more besides.
Stranded without any real means but some cannabis seeds, we first meet Innis Corbett in the woods working on a suitable clearing for an inconspicuous grow. Things slowly and laconically progress from that point, through the glacial advance of spring and into the splendor of summer.
The pace of the telling is unhurried, filled with rich descriptions of the landscape of the island and channel, the woods, the season’s slow turning, and of course Innis’ inner turmoil. This slow pace allows the author to demonstrate his talent with exposition, and ability to explore Innis’ thoughts, experiences, and ultimate fate.
Speaking of Innis’ fate, this book struck me as somewhat of an extremely slow-burn thriller. You know, based on his past, his present, and his plan to reinvent himself, that Innis is going to have a tough time somehow. Yet, on the other hand, he does grow as a person throughout the novel, though in that frustrating way.
Slow as the telling can be, I found it to be rich and evocative, kept taut enough by a background of tension and uncertainty. It’s a scenic slow burn with rich themes and solid symbolism.
Stranded without any real means but some cannabis seeds, we first meet Innis Corbett in the woods working on a suitable clearing for an inconspicuous grow. Things slowly and laconically progress from that point, through the glacial advance of spring and into the splendor of summer.
The pace of the telling is unhurried, filled with rich descriptions of the landscape of the island and channel, the woods, the season’s slow turning, and of course Innis’ inner turmoil. This slow pace allows the author to demonstrate his talent with exposition, and ability to explore Innis’ thoughts, experiences, and ultimate fate.
Speaking of Innis’ fate, this book struck me as somewhat of an extremely slow-burn thriller. You know, based on his past, his present, and his plan to reinvent himself, that Innis is going to have a tough time somehow. Yet, on the other hand, he does grow as a person throughout the novel, though in that frustrating way.
Slow as the telling can be, I found it to be rich and evocative, kept taut enough by a background of tension and uncertainty. It’s a scenic slow burn with rich themes and solid symbolism.
July 19, 2018
I read All the Men Are Sleeping and Eyestone. Loved them both. I was very excited to read this novel. It had some elements that were beautiful or thought provoking and also some symbolism I enjoyed.
I’d hoped to love his book. I held off reading it like a cherished treasure (I’d owned it a year), but I confess, it was a wearying disappointment.
I cared about some of the minor characters but the three main characters sort of bored and aggravated me in a tedious manner. I kept at it because I was sure McDonald would deliver, even after I knew it wouldn’t. Wish I could have given a higher ranking.
I’d hoped to love his book. I held off reading it like a cherished treasure (I’d owned it a year), but I confess, it was a wearying disappointment.
I cared about some of the minor characters but the three main characters sort of bored and aggravated me in a tedious manner. I kept at it because I was sure McDonald would deliver, even after I knew it wouldn’t. Wish I could have given a higher ranking.
August 18, 2017
I thought this would be a great book to read, since I had just visited Cape Breton, and found this book in a used bookstore in New Brunswick, noting I would probably never find it at home in the states. Wrong! It wasn't a great book, or not even a good one. In places it got rather boring, and it was so easy to want to skim, but I didn't. Worse ending also, not sure why the author got an award!
May 25, 2018
I really enjoyed reading this book. The prose was great, I could easily feel myself immersed in the land/humanscape of Cape Breton Island. I felt that the characters were both unique and consistent and altogether seemed genuine. The only thing that let this book down for me was its very poor ending. It felt like the author didn't really know how to tie the story together in a satisfactory way so in a way he just didn't.
October 17, 2021
I really enjoyed MacDonald's depictions of the flora, fauna, landscape and waterscape of Cape Breton Island, as well as his invocation of the Gaelic heritage of its long-time residents. I was less fond of the love triangle between Innis, Starr, and Claire, and found the lack of character growth in the first named very disappointing. As a metaphor for entrapment of different kinds though I don't know that he could have done better, but I was looking through the woods for some hope in the end.
October 11, 2020
3.5 stars. Nicely atmospheric, if a bit slow - at least 'til near the end, when the pace escalates to frantic. The very ending is ambiguous, at least on the external level, tho' I suppose the point is more about the character's inner journey. I enjoyed getting a feel for the island and its culture.
October 17, 2025
I liked this book more than I expected to. enjoyed the descriptions of the rustic Cape Breton life, the forests, the small communities. although I didn't really have expectations about how it would end, I was completely surprised by the ending.
June 10, 2017
Terrible ending. No closure. Rest enjoyable
June 22, 2017
There are certainly many lovely descriptions of Cape Breton Island but even they got tiresome after awhile. The plot plodded along with so little happening and I was so disappointed in the ending.
July 5, 2022
More of a 2.5, boring and a non-ending.
July 15, 2024
I liked the story didn't care for the very end of the book. Lots of description!
November 25, 2016
Beautifully written landscape and characters, the plot is a 3, but a good read.
June 9, 2025
A friend recommended this book to me, saying that it was similar to another one, that I loved - but I just couldn't connect with this book at all, which is too bad, considering it's set in Canada, and a particularly beautiful part of Canada, that we have spent some time in. Yes, the writing was good, but I found myself skimming the descriptions, and focusing more on the dialogue and story, which was not very interesting or compelling. Such a disappointment.
June 14, 2010
This is something of a coming-of-age story, following main character Innis Corbett for the better part of a year while he tries to find himself among the trees and mountains of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and its islands. He feels lost in the almost alien wilderness of his cold new home, and both betrayed and alienated by his family. Born in Cape Breton but raised in the U.S., Innis was barred from ever returning to his Boston-area life after a taste for joy-riding in other people's cars landed him in court. He feels trapped on the island, in his uncle's house, by his family's history in the region. Even after he begins to understand the culture, and appreciate it, he cultivates an escape plan centered on a good crop of weed and another man's car. The only person who seems to hold any sway with him is Claire, his uncle's latest girlfriend. As tension among the trio heats up, Innis begins a slide that brings him perilously near his former life and invokes one bad decision after another. Although this is somewhat a story about how people find their way through the world, it's also about how they lose their way. As much as it is a story of growing up, it is also a story of growing old and of coming to terms with decisions that, for better or worse, cannot be unmade. This is not a typical afternoon yawner, and I suspect a second reading will prove even more insightful. It has fist-fights and humor, adventure and petulance, and sensuous scenes that are superbly written. But this book won't be to everyone's taste. However, if you can think of it as a modern, Canadian introspective similar to Catcher In the Rye, I think it will prove its worth.
February 24, 2011
Cape Breton Road was an engaging read. Innis Corbett left Canada as a child with his parents, who settled in Boston. Following the death of his father, he is left with a mother who moves from man to man. Young Innis, now 20, has come home to Cape Breton to live with an uncle, after being deported back to Canada for involvement in a number of car thefts. His relationship with his uncle is tenuous at best, but tension mounts when his uncle begins a relationship with a much younger woman who captivates Innis. Meanwhile, Innis is growing marijuana plants in the attic, hoping to transplant them to clearings in the forest which surrounds his uncle's home, and find the means of striking out on his own. The writing beautifully evokes the forested landscape of Cape Breton, and the hold it has on those who live and return there, sometimes in spite of their best efforts to deny it. I found the ending somewhat weak, but the writing is fine and the characters beautifully drawn. Recommended.
May 7, 2008
I was totally enraptured by this novel about a 19-year-old boy ousted from the U.S. for stealing cars, and sent back to the place of his birth, Cape Breton Island, Canada. I was enraptured, that is, until the end when everything fell apart. It was an interesting tale about Innis, who just wanted to raise a small crop of weed in the woods and then make enough money from the sale of that weed to enable him to escape the confines of the island. Of course, along the way, he meets some wonderful characters, who teach him the value of the old-time ways. The end just didn't feel right to me, with Innis taking a giant leap backwards after all the believable little steps he had taken forward.
August 15, 2009
This is a great book - it's about a guy who was born on Cape Breton, and grew up in Boston, but got deported from the US for stealing cars. He has to go back home to Cape Breton and live with his grumpy uncle and his grumpy uncle's gorgeous girlfriend . . . anyway, he makes a plan to grow pot in the woods, sell it, and make enough cash to move out west and start over. He might be on the wrong side of the law, but he's really a great kid, I swear, and when you read the book you just really want his little grow-op to succeed. And it's a great book, although a little weird that my grandmother was the one who recommended it to me . . .
August 11, 2015
Not my typical genre of reading, but love the author's style of writing, his description of Cape Breton Island and its people which kept me glued to the book. A bit of mystery, small time crime, and intrigue. A Canadian born teen who was living in Boston with his mother is deported back to Canada, where he hasn't lived since he was two years old, after a car thieft spree in the States. It was a bit of a culture shock for him after living most of his life in the big city. Kind of reminds me of what's happening today to young Mexican born children living most of their life in the US but are deported back to Mexico a place where they've little connection.
January 10, 2017
Meh. It was boring. There was no...excitement...no ahhhhh, moment. It plodded along. I found the main character, a weird combination of a man-child, (perhaps that was the author's goal), pot-head, and cry-baby. I would have liked more of Finlay and Dan Rory. The priest arrives, and is gone just as fast. Starr and Claire, IMO were two-dimensional, not to mention just as boring as Innis, and I got a lot more of them, than wanted. Although I'm still not sure of Claire's purpose...she really wasn't a catalyst, just a chick who guys like. I especially didn't like the ending. Way to 'dial' it in.
January 31, 2012
Meh. I found this book pretty slow moving. I was also quite disappointed with the ending. I just didn't find it believable. I could definitely picture Cape Breton in my mind while reading the descriptions. But I thought "A Forest For Callum" by Frank MacDonald was an overall better book, if you're looking for a novel set in Cape Breton.
March 6, 2013
I really liked this book, although like others I was disappointed with the ending. There is a lot of main character interior monologue in this book--something I normally don't take to, but somehow in this case it worked well. I found the main character sympathetic and loved the descriptions of the landscape and setting.
August 9, 2016
Cape Breton Road is a first novel by D. R. MacDonald, obviously a new writer to me. This is the story of a kid gone wrong, let out of prison, and sent to his family on Cape Breton. Hi is angry and a druggie, two things that would be a problem for his undle if he cared. The uncle is not anyone I would want to know. Good story: love, angst, escape--all the exciting stuff.
January 29, 2008
This is a great book about dope and illicit sex and being a teenager, and it takes place on an island in Nova Scotia. I doubt all that many people have read it, but it's worth it for anyone who likes a sort of fierce naturalism.
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