Lament for a Notion: Loss and the Beothuk in Michael Crummey's "River Thieves."

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  • Author(s): Chafe, Paul
  • Source:
    Essays on Canadian Writing. Spring2004, Issue 82, p93-117. 25p.
  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
      Crummey, Michael, 1965-; River Thieves (Book); Fiction writing; Novelists; Canadian literature
    • Subject Terms:
      Newfoundland & Labrador
    • Abstract:
      Written in the wake of many novels that depict Newfoundlanders as being somehow at one with the island, Michael Crummey's "River Thieves" shows Newfound-landers as not so much of the island as in constant struggle with it. His re-creation of the quest to rescue a dwindling Beothuk population is a metaphoric voyage into the collective unconscious of Newfoundland—a communal ego imbued with feelings of pride and shame and a desire to know how things could have been. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]