Cape Breton Road

Cape Breton Road by D.R. MacDonald is the story of a young man with a good heart but a penchant for taking risks like "borrowing" fancy cars. Banished from the US to live with his uncle in Canada, he picks a spot high up in the hills to secretly cultivate marijuana, a cash crop "guaranteed" to buy his independence. When he falls painfully, hopelessly in love with the uncles live-in girlfriend, the tension and bitterness between the two men begins to mount. Cape Breton Road is a charming story that holds you in suspense as you hope against hope that this wholesome but naive young man won't get caught at some of his "indiscretions". Beautiful prose, wonderfully descriptive and insightful . . .a work of art.

Other reviewers have given plot details and discussed their reactions to the novel's ending, so I'll just cut to the chase: Cape Breton Road is amazingly well-written -- without the prolixity and gratuitous detail of so many contemporary novelists. Its prose is lean and spare, and therefore intense. Every detail strikes the reader as authentic; every experience woven into the plot has been "earned" or "lived" -- come by honestly and set down with something akin to reverence. Its presentation of nature and its impact on the observer are fine and true, reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence at his best, as in Sons and Lovers. Cape Breton Road is destined to become a word-of-mouth classic.

This was a well-written tragedy. I compare it to a Shakespeare tragedy. I didn't like the ending but it wasn't that I didn't like what the author wrote. I kept hoping Innis would make better choices. It was that hope that kept me reading to the end. And, of course, the author's wonderful descriptions of Nova Scotia's people, woods, water, events also kept me reading with great enjoyment. So even though I didn't like the ending, I loved the book.

be careful of this fiction. a triangle of woods and water and obsessions. cadillac dreams and hemlock nightmares. where does the end begin and the living end? the last chapter is an amazing drive through the last minutes of an innocent lost. there is more here than meets the sea.