Seeking elusive birds for his great work, John James Audubon sails to the northern reaches of the continent-and begins understanding the possibility of species extinction. In an ambitious and dense effort, Canadian novelist Govier (Going Through the Motions, 1982, etc.) fills in a largely undocumented gap in Audubon's search to document all the birds of North America. Nearing 50, semifamous, financing his research with balky subscriptions for the work in progress, the hugely talented but insecure artist has financed an expedition to Canada's maritimes to find and document the Great Auk and other rare birds. He leaves behind, as always, a domestic mess. His beloved wife Lucy, robbed of income by the needs of her husband's magnum opus, keeps up the homefront, barely clinging to respectability. While Lucy holds off the bailiffs, her husband has been in Charleston, South Carolina, flirting seriously with Maria Martin, an attractive spinster whose superb renderings of American fauna will be mingled with Audubon's avian portraits. Maria is constantly in his thoughts as Audubon sails up the Canadian coast, poking into coves, sinking into bogs, killing the hundreds of birds that will sit for their portraits. He is accompanied by his son Johnny, also a talented painter, and a couple of jovial young naturalists. Also working the waters is Royal Navy Captain Henry Bayfield, who is charting the hideously complex and dangerous coastline, balancing his own demands for perfection against the Admiralty's wish not to spend too much money. The sailor and artist form an odd and prickly friendship, and their awkward tradings of observations and philosophy provide the most compelling moments in thisnecessarily chilly narrative. Bayfield hears rather more than he may want to about Audubon's inner life, but, together, the two men reckon with the dawning idea that the epic slaughter of seemingly inexhaustible wildlife by human intruders will have dire and permanent consequences. Carefully crafted and deeply thoughtful, but not for the casual traveler. Agent: Bruce Westwood/Westwood Creative Artists
Creation is a tour de force, a finely written historical account that plays, for a serious purpose, with the very nature of historical inquiry and humanity’s place in the natural order. For all its absence of proof, it is a deeply convincing story.” Maclean's
“Creation is an unusual but enticing novel. Tightly constructed, well researched, and written with the élan that Govier always brings to her fiction, it presents the question is the act of creation also an act of destruction?” The Sun Times (Owen Sound)
“[Creation] is a marvelous piece of art…. Through a command of period vernacular, astonishing pictorial detail and craftsman-like skill, Govier brings Audubon alive…. Creation is a sprawling novel, teeming with natural abundance, yet delivered in small, intimate scenes…. the reward is deep engagement, the kind that promises a novel a lasting place in the affections of readers.” The Toronto Star
“Govier has crafted a novel of ideas, inseparably layering the ecological and personal. Redeeming both is that most human commodity, hope. Amid stone and black water, Govier finds an indifferent platform for both our ambitions and our hope.” The National Post
“In an inventive sleight-of-hand combining fact with fiction, history with myth, Govier spins the story of a man on a relentless quest to tame the untamable…. The book, with its beautiful cover, is meticulously researched, its descriptions of birds, their colours, their song, their habitats, enchanting. And [Govier’s] landscapes are both striking and wonderfully observed: rocky promontories, dark water, glowering skies and the chill splendour of icebergs.” The London Free Press
“[Govier] spins in Creation an elegiac, entrancing web of fiction that sprawls across time and continents, bringing to life a fascinating time, and portraying a driven, fame-seeking Audubon who’ll stop at nothing to fulfill his dream, the realization of his bird book, in which he has vowed to paint every species in North America from nature…. Everything about Creation is elegant: Govier’s gentle, thoughtful, insightful prose to the physical production of the book itself. Into a small space, that tiny sliver of time and place, Govier has created a universe that abounds with truth.” The Hamilton Spectator
“What a prize [Govier] has waylaid here…. A romance about book production? Absolutely. After reading a brilliant chapter on an engraver’s efforts to reproduce an image, you’ll never again pick up a book of prints without marveling over what it took to make the images happen for you.” The Vancouver Sun
“A nutritious and satisfying historical novel that has the courage not to be constrained by the strict historical record…. Govier’s prose is pellucid here and in patches downright luminescent. The book is also auseful gloss on the recent renaissance in Newfoundland writing.” George Fetherling, Vancouver Sun
“A fascinating read.” The Edmonton Journal
“Creation gives a vivid picture of the geography of coastal Labrador, where nature is beautiful but violent. With its blend of historic fact and brilliantly imagined possibilities, Creation is a striking accomplishment by a skilled novelist.” Chronicle-Herald (Halifax)
“In Creation, novelist Katherine Govier imagines one summer in the life of John James Audubon. And what an imagination if the famed bird artist was even half the man Govier paints, he was remarkable indeed…. It’s an enthralling read right from the start…. Fascinating … an adventure-filled tale of a visionary whose revelations on this Canadian journey foretold a future that held destruction and extinction.” The Daily News (Halifax)