In the skin of a lion

A young man from the Canadian back country moves to Toronto and becomes involved with two actresses, experiencing love, despair and, eventually, compulsion to commit a violent act. ``A spellbinding writer, Ondaatje exhibits a poet's sensibility and care for the precise, illuminating word,'' praised PW . (November) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In the Canadian wilderness, early in this century, Patrick Lewis grows up a child apart. Some time later in Toronto, an immigrant worker, suspended beneath the bridge he is helping to build, rescues from mid-air a nun swept away by the wind. The paths of these three people eventually cross, with explosive results. Born in Sri Lanka and now living in Canada, Ondaatje writes feelingly of the immigrant experience. That experiencethe ethnic mix, the battle against nature, the battle of worker against exploitationis familiar in outline but subtly different in detail because of the Canadian setting and Ondaatje's particular gifts. A fine poet, he gives us a series of piercing, beautifully controlled passages. If the novel finally spins out of controlepisodic, it seems not so much to resolve as dissolveit remains evocative throughout. Highly recommended for readers of serious fiction. Barbara Hoffert, ``Library Journal'' (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A lyric and sometimes surreal novel by the Canadian poet and writer Ondaatje (author of the remarkable poetry volume The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, 1974; and the novel about Buddy Bolden, Coming through Slaughter, 1977) that may remind readers of certain of the more captivating aspects of, say, Ragtime. Ondaatje's setting is Toronto and environs from pre-WW I years up to 1938, and his emerging (but not only) theme is the labor and union movement among immigrant workers. In segments that read much like stories themselves, the reader meets a boy named Patrick Lewis, whose father is a dynamiter for lumber companies in backwoods Canada, then follows Patrick as he later goes to big-city Toronto and becomes (in 1924) a ""searcher"" for the missing capitalist and ruthless millionaire Ambrose Small. As part of his search--conducted (as is the whole of the book) amid a pleasurable wealth of period atmosphere and detail--Patrick meets and falls in love with Ambrose Small's actress-mistress, Clara Dickens; and then, when Clara Dickens ""must"" return to the somewhere-still-existing Small (in one of the novel's more surreal sections), Patrick falls in love with Clara's best friend, Alice Gull. The reader will learn in time that Alice is in fact the nun who was thought to have disappeared after falling from a new bridge back in 1917 (though in fact she was caught in mid-air by an immigrant worker), and, in her new incarnation as actress and lover, she will seek to radicalize Patrick Lewis, who himself now works as a laborer for the city's vast and grandiose new waterworks project. The radicalizing will succeed, though something terrible will happen to Alice, and, in between, there will be side stories--colorful, imagistic, and often lovely--about union martyrs and labor pioneers. If there are flaws here, they lie in the minor hints of a history-lesson tendentiousness, but a poetically energized grace and a perfected and rich inventiveness remain the greater marks of this talented writer. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In the Canadian wilderness, early in this century, Patrick Lewis grows up a child apart. Some time later in Toronto, an immigrant worker, suspended beneath the bridge he is helping to build, rescues from mid-air a nun swept away by the wind. The paths of these three people eventually cross, with explosive results. Born in Sri Lanka and now living in Canada, Ondaatje writes feelingly of the immigrant experience. That experiencethe ethnic mix, the battle against nature, the battle of worker against exploitationis familiar in outline but subtly different in detail because of the Canadian setting and Ondaatje's particular gifts. A fine poet, he gives us a series of piercing, beautifully controlled passages. If the novel finally spins out of controlepisodic, it seems not so much to resolve as dissolveit remains evocative throughout. Highly recommended for readers of serious fiction. Barbara Hoffert, ``Library Journal'' Copyright 1987 Cahners Business Information.

A spellbinding writer, Ondaatje exhibits a poet's sensibility and care for the precise, illuminating word. The author of Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid again paints an impressionistic picture mixing real events and intersected fictional lives. We meet Patrick Lewis in his youth, living in the harsh but beautiful Canadian back country, with his father, a dynamiter of log jams. The action then segues to Toronto in the 1920s, where daredevil bridge builders, immigrants from many countries, are engaged in erecting an enormous span. A scene in which a young nun is swept off the unfinished bridge on a stormy night will make readers gasp; descriptions of the skill and agility of the bridge workers and the laborers who build a tunnel under Lake Ontario, going about their work in the yawning maw of danger, are also graphically stunning. When Patrick comes to Toronto, feeling himself an immigrant from the provinces, his life becomes entwined with those of actresses Clara Dickens and Alice Gull, with whom he experiences love, despair and, eventually, compulsion to commit a violent act. Ondaatje everywhere uses ``a spell of language'' to spin his brilliantly evoked tale. He writes, ``The best art can order the chaotic tumble of events'' and ``the first sentence of every novel should be: `Trust me, this will take time, but there is order here, very faint, very human.' '' Both statements aptly describe this beautiful work. (September 28) Copyright 1987 Cahners Business Information.