Red Hill Creek

by Mark Lisac

In 1957, Hamilton is a city steeped in memories of the Second World War and other conflicts. Eighteen-year-old Jack Crandall is obsessed with learning more about his father, a Canadian soldier who abandoned him and his mother, and died in the Dieppe Raid. He finds a kind of father substitute in Walter Haffner, the taciturn German army veteran he works for. But when a Canadian army vet is found beaten into a coma, Jack has to accept that Walter may not have forgotten the war despite never wanting to talk about it. And confronting the ghostly memory of his real father brings no comfort. Has he inherited too much of that man's unreliability to have a lasting relationship with any of the girls he likes? A story of friendship, loyalty, reluctant love, laughter, sadness, the legacy of war — and of Hamilton, a city of unapologetic grit and surprising natural beauty in the heart of Canada.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

255 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2021

About the author

Mark believes readers deserve writing of good quality and tries to deliver it, but not in a showoff manner. His most recent work is Dream Home, a novel that can be read as a satirical portrait of an Alberta politician, and/or as a parody of a famous work of fiction, or as a story that stands on its own. That book followed Red Hill Creek, a novel about friendship, loyalty, and the legacy of war — set in Hamilton, Canada, in 1957.
Mark grew up in Hamilton and was a journalist for forty years in Saskatchewan and Alberta before turning to fiction when not busy making wine and pizza, and watching CFL football.
His first fiction book, Where the Bodies Lie, was shortlisted by Crime Writers of Canada for its best first novel award in 2017.
Non-fiction produced during his work career included The Klein Revolution, the first book-length study of a crisis period in Alberta politics, and Alberta Politics Uncovered, which won the Writers' Guild of Alberta award for non-fiction in 2005.
He lives in Edmonton with his wife.

Reviews

[Elinor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, and his nostalgia for the place has surely informed his descriptions of the city in the 1950s. In fact, so strong is the sense of place that the setting is almost a character in itself. You won't find gripping suspense in this novel, but rather a quiet and thoughtful account of a fatherless teenager struggling to find his identity in the context of post-war customs and prejudices that existed in every North American city. For those who remember the 1950s, it's a stroll down memory lane. For everyone else, it's an illuminating look at our own recent history. Full disclosure: I know the author personally, and have reviewed his other two novels.

[Ellen Nygaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a memoir of life in Hamilton, Ontario in the 1950s, a coming-of-age novel, a meditation on how the past haunts the present, and a mystery/thriller in that order. The author beautifully evokes the time and place (mostly the working-class east end of Hamilton) and has a knack for naturalistic dialogue, paying particular attention to an accurate idiom for the times. Industrial Hamilton has not often been used as a setting for novels, but should be. In many ways it would make a good representative for any industrial city in North America at that time, with its rapid economic changes, influx of recent immigrants, and the presaged exit of its young people from the world of heavy industry into the white collar world of the future.

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodreads Paperback Win

Story of a young man growing up in Canada who becomes obsessed with a father he does not know as he and his mother are abandon. He meets a veteran who will remind him of his father and what the image he has built him to be.

It’s a moving story of the effects of war and how it changes life in ways that you don’t always see. A gripping read.

[M.J. Schwer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book! The author’s style reminds me of Steinbeck! Ill have to purchase his other work!