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The Fourth Archangel
In the aptly named prairie town of Ordeal, on the eve of the millennium, a powerful struggle is taking place. The farming community is fighting to survive in the turmoil of the years'-long drought and governmental indifference. But as the townspeople rally together when the provincial premier comes to town, other visitations -- both powerful and fantastical -- are unfolding in their midst. Cattle ranchers from a bygone era walk among the living, and freight trains roar on abandoned tracks."The Fourth Archangel" is a sweeping and magical living history of the land. Through a large and colorful cast of characters, and in writing as spare and beautiful as her subject, Sharon Butala weaves a rich and baroque tapestry of the land and the eternal human struggle to protect it, to tame it, to free ourselves of it, to live with it and love it.
295 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
15 people want to read
About the author
Sharon Butala
65 books59 followersSharon Butala (born Sharon Annette LeBlanc, August 24, 1940 in Nipawin, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian writer and novelist.
Her first book, Country of the Heart, was published in 1984 and won the Books in Canada First Novel Award.
As head of the Eastend Arts Council she spearheaded the creation of the Wallace Stegner House Residence for Artists in which Wallace Stegner's childhood home was turned into a retreat for writers and artists.[14]
She lived in Eastend until Peter's death in 2007. She now lives in Calgary, Alberta.
She was shortlisted for the Governor General's award twice, once for fiction for Queen of the Headaches, and once for nonfiction for The Perfection of the Morning.
The Fall 2012 issue of Prairie Fire, entitled The Visionary Art of Sharon Butala was dedicated to Butala and her work and influence.
(from Wikipedia)
Her first book, Country of the Heart, was published in 1984 and won the Books in Canada First Novel Award.
As head of the Eastend Arts Council she spearheaded the creation of the Wallace Stegner House Residence for Artists in which Wallace Stegner's childhood home was turned into a retreat for writers and artists.[14]
She lived in Eastend until Peter's death in 2007. She now lives in Calgary, Alberta.
She was shortlisted for the Governor General's award twice, once for fiction for Queen of the Headaches, and once for nonfiction for The Perfection of the Morning.
The Fall 2012 issue of Prairie Fire, entitled The Visionary Art of Sharon Butala was dedicated to Butala and her work and influence.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 27, 2025
Always a fan of Saskatchewan writers, I had only up until this book, read Butala's nonfiction true crime book, The Girls in Saskatoon. I am building a collection of Butala's books as I am a Saskatchewan girl, born and raised and have never left the province. So at some point, I'll be able to say, I've read them all.
I have to admit, it took me awhile to finish the book. I grew up a half hour from the fictional town that this book takes place in. I thought that in itself would draw me in and hold my interest. Butala's writing is wonderful, so that wasn't why I read this over many sittings. I began reading at the beach, and was able to get a second installment in on another beach day. The book stayed tucked away in the bag while my summer reading time seemed to only be audiobooks. When life slowed down in September, I was able to finally pick up the physical book and finish it!
I enjoyed all the characters in the story but I felt that I was expecting a bigger plot twist earlier in the book. I was nearing the end of the story and the apocalypse hadn't happened yet.
This book made me long for my childhood. My small town was made up of similar characters. I appreciated the fact that Butala did use the names of real communities in her novel such as Swift Current. (So is the town of Crisis based in Shaunavon?) I also loved the fact that this book was published in the year I graduated high school and yet its relevancy is here thirty plus years later!! Perhaps the contents of this book are even more so relevant in 2025. The struggles are still here for small town Saskatchewan.
Even Connie Kaldor is still part of Saskatchewan thirty years later so I loved that she shows up in this novel to perform what seemed to be one song in front of the post office before being whisked away! I pictured this entire scene as if it was taking place in front of my hometown post office. As for the Premier, it must have been Grant Devine who was in power back when the novel was written.
I work in a library and do often promote Sharon Butala's work. A patron had hoped some of her works were available on audiobook which I believe they may be in other parts of the province, but unfortunately we can find no audiobooks on Libby.
in 2026, I plan to challenge myself to read all of Butala's work, at least the ones that I have on my personal bookshelf. I very much enjoyed this one!
I have to admit, it took me awhile to finish the book. I grew up a half hour from the fictional town that this book takes place in. I thought that in itself would draw me in and hold my interest. Butala's writing is wonderful, so that wasn't why I read this over many sittings. I began reading at the beach, and was able to get a second installment in on another beach day. The book stayed tucked away in the bag while my summer reading time seemed to only be audiobooks. When life slowed down in September, I was able to finally pick up the physical book and finish it!
I enjoyed all the characters in the story but I felt that I was expecting a bigger plot twist earlier in the book. I was nearing the end of the story and the apocalypse hadn't happened yet.
This book made me long for my childhood. My small town was made up of similar characters. I appreciated the fact that Butala did use the names of real communities in her novel such as Swift Current. (So is the town of Crisis based in Shaunavon?) I also loved the fact that this book was published in the year I graduated high school and yet its relevancy is here thirty plus years later!! Perhaps the contents of this book are even more so relevant in 2025. The struggles are still here for small town Saskatchewan.
Even Connie Kaldor is still part of Saskatchewan thirty years later so I loved that she shows up in this novel to perform what seemed to be one song in front of the post office before being whisked away! I pictured this entire scene as if it was taking place in front of my hometown post office. As for the Premier, it must have been Grant Devine who was in power back when the novel was written.
I work in a library and do often promote Sharon Butala's work. A patron had hoped some of her works were available on audiobook which I believe they may be in other parts of the province, but unfortunately we can find no audiobooks on Libby.
in 2026, I plan to challenge myself to read all of Butala's work, at least the ones that I have on my personal bookshelf. I very much enjoyed this one!
March 10, 2023
This story is, on the surface, about loss. Loss of loved ones, loss of community, loss of a way of life, loss of the mask of social position. The examples of loss are what's on the surface, and seen everywhere throughout the story.
Deeper, it is about being forced to recognize that identity, built up over time by unforeseen and foreseen circumstances, is subject to ingrained and learned patterns of behaviour. What people can control is their own attitude towards happiness, but most characters don't seem to believe happiness can apply to them or they don't somehow deserve it.
The wind is ever present, a character in itself, representing the unconquerable, chaos, its force representing that we are part of the natural world and this is not negotiable. Nature (and in the story, God as well) is beyond human control, beyond even understanding; the belief that it is is revealed as folly.
The town of Ordeal, Saskatchewan, set upon the open prairie, is dying, its citizens leaving voluntarily or being forced out economically. It has been built up by the folly of the past, and since then, greed for ever more production, to feed desires for more and better material things has finally led to a collapse in farming. The land can no longer support small, independent farmers. Agribusiness is the supposed future (another folly) and it has no need of towns like Ordeal. The various levels of government are abandoning Ordeal as there is no point pretending it can survive as it was.
Amidst all the destruction, we briefly see a single character, barely mentioned, that lives nearby on a farm described as a paradise. It actually works. The owner lives simply, living close to nature, attempting to work with it, not against it. But the desire for progress-the myth that it will lead to better lives-is still too strong for the townspeople of Ordeal. Better to fail and fade away than learn from paradise, which they see as backwards, anti-progress, something somehow negative, and therefor best avoided.
A good read.
Deeper, it is about being forced to recognize that identity, built up over time by unforeseen and foreseen circumstances, is subject to ingrained and learned patterns of behaviour. What people can control is their own attitude towards happiness, but most characters don't seem to believe happiness can apply to them or they don't somehow deserve it.
The wind is ever present, a character in itself, representing the unconquerable, chaos, its force representing that we are part of the natural world and this is not negotiable. Nature (and in the story, God as well) is beyond human control, beyond even understanding; the belief that it is is revealed as folly.
The town of Ordeal, Saskatchewan, set upon the open prairie, is dying, its citizens leaving voluntarily or being forced out economically. It has been built up by the folly of the past, and since then, greed for ever more production, to feed desires for more and better material things has finally led to a collapse in farming. The land can no longer support small, independent farmers. Agribusiness is the supposed future (another folly) and it has no need of towns like Ordeal. The various levels of government are abandoning Ordeal as there is no point pretending it can survive as it was.
Amidst all the destruction, we briefly see a single character, barely mentioned, that lives nearby on a farm described as a paradise. It actually works. The owner lives simply, living close to nature, attempting to work with it, not against it. But the desire for progress-the myth that it will lead to better lives-is still too strong for the townspeople of Ordeal. Better to fail and fade away than learn from paradise, which they see as backwards, anti-progress, something somehow negative, and therefor best avoided.
A good read.
May 5, 2020
This is a 3.5 star read rounded up.
It is not a sequel to the better, but different, Perfection of the morning.
The story is set in a small prairie town in Saskatchewan, and concentrated on the people more than the natural setting. And quite an interesting variety they are, from the wives, widows, potter, post master, store keeper, coffee shop owner, and political activists, and most prominently, religious zealots and the important farmers and family groupings.
Although it is not a natural history book, nor an historical one, it is completely grounded in its setting of prairie life disappearing as towns die and drought kills off crop land. It reads like a slice of life in the dust bowl, but injects a more modern perspective, emphasizing the debt to bankers who really own their new tractors and cars and how easily people become complacent and assume the good times will last and keep improving. Inject into this mix dreams of the past which seem to be omens, and questions of arrogance, faith, urban rural divide, and a wonderful sense of place and questions of belonging , and it becomes a book worth reading. It has a tendency to read like vignettes rather than a novel, but if you have a fondness for the atmosphere the author can create, and prairie survival, you will be glad you read this book.
It is not a sequel to the better, but different, Perfection of the morning.
The story is set in a small prairie town in Saskatchewan, and concentrated on the people more than the natural setting. And quite an interesting variety they are, from the wives, widows, potter, post master, store keeper, coffee shop owner, and political activists, and most prominently, religious zealots and the important farmers and family groupings.
Although it is not a natural history book, nor an historical one, it is completely grounded in its setting of prairie life disappearing as towns die and drought kills off crop land. It reads like a slice of life in the dust bowl, but injects a more modern perspective, emphasizing the debt to bankers who really own their new tractors and cars and how easily people become complacent and assume the good times will last and keep improving. Inject into this mix dreams of the past which seem to be omens, and questions of arrogance, faith, urban rural divide, and a wonderful sense of place and questions of belonging , and it becomes a book worth reading. It has a tendency to read like vignettes rather than a novel, but if you have a fondness for the atmosphere the author can create, and prairie survival, you will be glad you read this book.
January 14, 2018
Sharon Butala is the Alice Munro of the prairies, the Tolstoy of small town Canada. I loved this book, and can't wait to read it again. Remarkable.
February 20, 2020
Truly one of the most brilliant books I have ever read; it presages the recent work by Margaret Atwood and Louise Erdrich.
July 2, 2020
Absorbing melodrama
December 8, 2016
This is the third in a trilogy of rural life but they are not really connected character wise. This story follows several characters in a small town and surrounding farm area, an area that is suffering due to drought and over spending, an area at risk for losing everything.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews