AUGUST GALE

A Father and Daughter’s Journey into the Storm

In her new memoir, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Barbara Walsh—who has interviewed killers, bad cops, and crooked politicians in the course of her career—faces the most challenging story of her lifetime: asking her father about his childhood pain. In the process, she takes us on two heartrending odysseys: one into a deadly Newfoundland hurricane and the lives of schooner fishermen who relied on God and the wind to carry them home; the other, into a squall stirred by a man with many secrets: a grandfather who remained a mystery until long after his death.

Sixty-eight years after the hurricane that claimed several of her ancestors, Walsh searches for memories of the August gale and the grandfather who abandoned her dad as a young boy. Together, she and her father journey to Newfoundland to learn about the 1935 storm, and along the way her dad begins to talk about the man he cannot forgive. As she recreates the scenes of the violent hurricane and a small boy's tender past, she holds onto a hidden desire: to heal her father and redeem the grandfather she has never met.

Pub date: October 18, 2011

August Gale: A Father and Daughter’s Journey into the Storm, By Barbara Walsh, ISBN 978-0-7627-6146-3, $27.50 CAN  Hardcover

Author Tour:

Saint John, NB - Wednesday, October 26, 2011 | 12:00pm Saint John Free Public Library

Fredericton, NB - Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 | 7:00pm Fredericton Public Library

Moncton, NB - Thursday, October 27, 2011 | 12:00pm Moncton Public Library

St. John’s NL - Friday, October 28, 2011 | 12:00pm A.C. Hunter Public Library

Marystown, NL - Saturday, October 29, 2011 | 7:00pm St. Gabriel’s Hall

St. John’s NL - Sunday, October 30, 2011 | 7:00pm The Ship Pub

Halifax, NS - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 | 7:00pm Keshen Goodman Public Library