An Evening with Thomas Wharton
Join acclaimed author Thomas Wharton as he visits Winnipeg to discuss his new novel, The Book of Rain (Random House of Canada), with host Chris Hall of McNally Robinson Booksellers. Co-presented by McNally Robinson Booksellers.
The launch will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a simultaneous YouTube stream featuring live chat. Before arriving, please review details of how to attend physical events at the store.
The northern mining town of River Meadows is one of three hotspots in the world producing ghost ore, a new source of energy worth twenty-eight times its weight in gold. It’s also linked with slippages of time and space that gradually render the area uninhabitable. After the town is evacuated, the whole region is cordoned off, the new no-go zone wryly nicknamed “the Park.”
Three intertwined stories flow from the disaster of River Meadows, forming a groundbreaking, deeply affecting work of environmental literary suspense for fans of Cloud Atlas, The Overstory, and Station Eleven. As sweeping in scope as a world of its own, The Book of Rain is a novel of epic reach, beautifully multi-layered, haunting and profound.
Thomas Wharton’s first novel, Icefields, won the Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize, the Writers Guild of Alberta First Book Award, and a regional Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. He now lives and teaches English in Edmonton where he is at work on his next novel, set in the present day.
Host Chris Hall has been with McNally Robinson Booksellers for more than twenty-five years, more than ten of which as owner. When he isn’t reading or walking he loves to travel and cook. He lives in Winnipeg and is currently training his daughters to be booksellers.
The Book of Rain
Thomas Wharton 
The northern mining town of River Meadows is one of three hotspots in the world producing ghost ore, a new source of energy worth twenty-eight times its weight in gold. It’s also linked with slippages of time and space that gradually render the area uninhabitable. After the town is evacuated, the whole region is cordoned off, the new no-go zone wryly nicknamed “the Park.”
Three intertwined stories flow from the disaster of River Meadows. Alex Hewitt and his sister, Amery, were among the first to be shipped out of the contaminated town. Now an accomplished game designer, Alex has moved on, but his sister has not, making increasingly dangerous break-ins to save animals trapped in the toxic wasteland. When at last she fails to return from a trip inside the fence, Alex flies to River Meadows to search for her, enlisting her friend, Michio Amano, a mathematician who needs to transcend the known laws of physics if he and Alex are to succeed.
Claire Foley ran away from River Meadows as a teenager and now traffics in endangered wildlife. As Alex and Michio search for Amery, Claire arrives in an island nation under threat of environmental catastrophe to retrieve her greatest prize yet, only to find herself facing a life-altering choice.
And, finally, in a future as distant as myth, a flock of birds sets out on a dangerous journey to prevent the extinction of their ancient enemy, humanity. The account they hand down is an Epic of Gilgamesh for our times, illuminating the wisdom of nature and our flawed stewardship of the planet.
As sweeping in scope as a world of its own, The Book of Rain is a novel of epic reach, beautifully multi-layered, haunting and profound.
Venue
McNally Robinson - Grant Park
- 1120 Grant Avenue