The Desire of Every Living Thing
A Memoir
At the age of eighty, Don Gillmor's grandmother let slip the defining secret of her life: her twin sister Jean was not her twin, but her aunt, and her family had emigrated from Scotland to Winnipeg to escape the stigma of her illegitimacy. That revelation set Gillmor off on what seemed at first like the most personal of quests: to track down his ancestors. The Desire of Every Living Thing is also the story of the New World, the story of Winnipeg, the story of this country. Both an evocative family memoir and a brilliant feat of historical imagination, the book's most moving theme is how the discarded past haunts and shapes our lives without us even noticing.
$8.99
August 24, 2011
DON GILLMOR is the author of the bestselling, award-winning two-volumeCanada: A People's History, and two other books of non-fiction. His debut novel, Kanata,was published to critical acclaim, and his second novel, Mount Pleasant, published in 2013, was a national bestseller. Another groundbreaker for Gillmor, it was described by the Toronto Star as "a near-perfect satire of the faltering lives of Toronto's no-longer-young yuppies. Funny to the point it hurts, because it's all so true." Gillmor has also written nine books for children, two of which were nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award, and he is one of Canada's most accomplished journalists. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.