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The Fetch
Shortlisted for the 2011 Northern "LIT" Award (Northern Libraries recognizing Northern Authors)
A book of voices arising out of the lives of people who populated outport Newfoundland.
Drawing on family recollections, interviews with elders and extensive research in archives and regional museums, The Fetch, Nico Rogers' first book, is a brilliant hybrid -- neither a novel nor a collection of short stories. This compelling volume of tales and prose poems contains a broad range of characters. There is the slow-witted girl who has lost her mother and now has only the cow named Fatty for a friend; the hard-bitten captain of a schooner in recoil from the ways of his alcoholic father; the child born premature, swaddled in olive oil-soaked linen, placed in a pan and incubated in an oven. And so on, twenty-eight vignettes in all, all tightly written and highly evocative of outport Newfoundland before Confederation. Funny, tragic, and just.
A book of voices arising out of the lives of people who populated outport Newfoundland.
Drawing on family recollections, interviews with elders and extensive research in archives and regional museums, The Fetch, Nico Rogers' first book, is a brilliant hybrid -- neither a novel nor a collection of short stories. This compelling volume of tales and prose poems contains a broad range of characters. There is the slow-witted girl who has lost her mother and now has only the cow named Fatty for a friend; the hard-bitten captain of a schooner in recoil from the ways of his alcoholic father; the child born premature, swaddled in olive oil-soaked linen, placed in a pan and incubated in an oven. And so on, twenty-eight vignettes in all, all tightly written and highly evocative of outport Newfoundland before Confederation. Funny, tragic, and just.
- GenresCanada
114 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 28, 2010
4 people want to read
About the author
Nico Rogers
3 books12 followersNico was born near Ottawa and raised in Haileybury, a small town on Lake Temiskaming in Northeastern Ontario.
He holds a M.A. English (Creative Writing Thesis) from the University of Manitoba and has recently put his doctoral studies at the University of Alberta on hold to focus on his writing.
He has appeared at writing and folk festivals across Canada, as well as on TV and radio. He has taught writing and literature in post-secondary institutions in Ottawa, Winnipeg and Edmonton. He has also worked as a carpenter.
He holds a M.A. English (Creative Writing Thesis) from the University of Manitoba and has recently put his doctoral studies at the University of Alberta on hold to focus on his writing.
He has appeared at writing and folk festivals across Canada, as well as on TV and radio. He has taught writing and literature in post-secondary institutions in Ottawa, Winnipeg and Edmonton. He has also worked as a carpenter.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 18, 2011
In The Fetch: A Book of Voices (Brick Books, 120 pages, $19), Ontario-based storyteller Nico Rogers re-creates outport Newfoundland of 50 or 100 years ago in a way both surprising and familiar.
Familiar, because these texts/images have their share of gutted fish, drowned fisherman and starving widows, but surprising because there isn't the smallest drop of condescension or sentimentality in Rogers' debut.
And surprising, too, because The Fetch's orphans, widows and yearning men will make you cry as they turn themselves inside out on the page.
Rogers, who completed his MA - and a first draft of this book - at the University of Manitoba, wrote The Fetch in homage to his father. He didn't grow up in Newfoundland himself, but based his texts on interviews with relatives and community elders and time spent in archives.
And it works, thankfully, both as tribute and as art.
Familiar, because these texts/images have their share of gutted fish, drowned fisherman and starving widows, but surprising because there isn't the smallest drop of condescension or sentimentality in Rogers' debut.
And surprising, too, because The Fetch's orphans, widows and yearning men will make you cry as they turn themselves inside out on the page.
Rogers, who completed his MA - and a first draft of this book - at the University of Manitoba, wrote The Fetch in homage to his father. He didn't grow up in Newfoundland himself, but based his texts on interviews with relatives and community elders and time spent in archives.
And it works, thankfully, both as tribute and as art.
July 5, 2014
Catalogued as "poetry," The Fetch doesn't look it. But what does poetry look like? Maybe these are short, short stories (akin to John Gould's Kilter). Maybe it's a novel of linked stories. Maybe they're prose poems. I'd say some of the works in here are prose poems (the opening piece "Barking down a Tree" and "The Deep," for example) but others are most definitely short stories ("Last Chance," "Lucky Boy"). The memoir-y tone at times gives the collection the feel of essay. Whatever it is, I like it and would recommend it. It's for reading, like story. It's for savouring, like poetry. I look forward to Rogers's novel, which according to the back flap, "will be a thematic companion to The Fetch." More genre-bending, ho!
April 25, 2011
loved the voices, loved the stories. good to hear of an old university chum writing such great work and sharing it with others. and a novel based on one of the stories will be great. any one of these would make a great novel.
December 6, 2014
A beautifully written book of tales by a fine hand. The mood and tone bring you to the early age of the Rock and the humour that bleeds through the words keeps you there. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews