Calvin Trillin recommends The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

An historical novel about someone most people have never heard of—but recommended by Calvin Trillin.

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
By Wayne Johnston
1999

I don't think of myself as having much interest in historical novels, but two of my favorite pieces of fiction could be included in that category: The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, by Wayne Johnston, and The Siege of Krishnapur, by J. G. Farrell. (The winner of the Booker Prize in 1973, The Siege of Krishnapur takes place almost entirely within a British fort under siege during the Sepoy Rebellion against the British Raj in 1857. New York Review Books reissued it in a handsome paperback edition in 2004.) The improbable hero of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an actual historical figure, though one most Americans are unaware of-Joey Smallwood, who led Newfoundland into the Canadian federation. The major events Johnston describes in the novel actually happened: as a labor organizer in 1925, Smallwood actually did walk across the entire colony to unionize railroad section-men, for instance, and Newfoundlanders did actually vote to join Canada in 1949. But the most vivid character in the book, the St. John's newspaper columnist Sheilagh Fielding, is fictional. The novel has the sweep of a grand Hollywood movie, complete with seal hunt, and it manages to make a fully rounded character out of a place-the strange and fascinating colony of unrequited dreams. I once described it as "the great American novel, except it happens to be about Newfoundland."

Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, is also The Nation's "deadline poet." His books include the novel Tepper Isn't Going Out, the memoir About Alice, and Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme.