The Untimely Resurrection of John Alexander MacNeil by Lesley Choyce

Ninety-year-old John Alexander MacNeil lives by himself in his farmhouse on Cape Breton Island. When he stops breathing and feels his heart thump one final time, he somehow manages to will himself back to life and finds himself in a conversation, at his own kitchen table, with Death. Death, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the town’s new doctor, warns John Alex that, if not him, someone in his circle is in danger. Thus follows an epic-feeling quest to figure out just who is in John Alex’s circle: his dear friend-who-could-have-been-a-lover-if-he-was-younger, Sheila? His 10-year-old honorary grand-daughter? Of course. The reclusive son of his late friend torn from his island sanctuary? the new pharmacist in town who becomes a co-conspirator? All seem possible. And now, as a strange new virus is spreading across the world, he must protect this circle from forces that seem too big for a man nearing the end of his own life to tackle. But John Alex is not a man to cave in to old age.

John Alex is a man alone but not a lonely man. While he misses his late wife more than life, he has surrounded himself with a clan of people who care for him deeply despite himself. He is both crotchety and kindly, big-hearted, funny, wise, sarcastic, thorny, and more courageous than he believes. And he will need all that courage to both save and take lives in this beautiful novel.

This novel is a sequel to Choyce’s The Unlikely Redemption of John Alexander MacNeil, but it is delightful as a stand-alone read. It is a book that is bigger than it looks, both physically and metaphysically, to be savoured like a good rum, as John Alex would. It examines the nature of family, the people we share genes with as well as the family we create. It approaches head-on – not without humour – death, dying, aging and the inevitable changes life brings. These huge topics slip into the pages easily and stay with the reader long after the last page is read. How do we treat our elderly? As people with feelings, desires, passions or as disposables, things to be tucked away in nursing homes, someone else’s problem? Do people have an “expiration date” and who chooses it? It is both timeless and timely, thought-provoking in a warmly humourous fashion, with richly drawn characters you will come to love. If you haven’t read Choyce’s first book about John Alex before this, you will definitely want to after… then go and hug your grandparents, if you’re lucky enough to still have them!

Lesley Choyce is the author of more than 100 books of literary fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and young adult novels. He runs Pottersfield Press and has worked as editor with a wide range of Canadian authors. Choyce has been teaching English and creative writing at Dalhousie and other universities for over forty years. He has won the Dartmouth Book Award, Atlantic Poetry Prize and Ann Connor Brimer Award and has been short-listed for the Governor-General?s Award. In 2022 he was given the Atlantic Legacy Award for his ?lasting contribution to the development of the literary arts in Atlantic Canada.? He surfs year-round in the North Atlantic.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Roseway Publishing (Sept. 28 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 216 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1773636391
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1773636399

Heather McBriarty

Heather McBriarty is an author, lecturer and Medical Radiation Technologist based in Saint John, NB. Her love of reading and books began early in life, as did her love of writing, but it was the discovery of old family correspondence that led to her first non-fiction book, Somewhere in Flanders: Letters from the Front,and a passion for the First World War. She has delivered lectures to the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, NB Genealogy Society, and Western Front Association (Central Ontario Branch), among others, on the war. Heather’s first novel of the “Great War”, Amid the Splintered Trees, was launched in November 2021.