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A Novel
by Michelle Porter
Robbie has spent most of life wondering about his real father, Mike, who long since left their family due to his struggles with visions and mistrust of the modern world.
Robbie can't forget how much he felt connected to him from his few visits, and not just because they share two differently colored eyes. But now, as he rescues his mother from encroaching wildfires, he's determined to also find his father. Robbie takes off to find answers, and when his uncle confesses that he last dropped Mike off at a glacier, he and his uncle head climb up the mountain of ice to see if Mike might still be there, and whether he's still alive.
On the slopes of a huge glacier, Robbie, starts hearing the ancient voice of the glacier itself giving him guidance. Has he accessed a deep connection to the land, or is he succumbing to the same illness that had wreaked havoc on his father's life?
Michelle Porter brings her profoundly moving sensibility and disarmingly funny voice to a powerful contemporary story of identity and belonging, loss and healing, within families and with the immortal land itself.
"As layered as the ice of a glacier, this is a story that will have you coming back again and again to truly understand its depth and brilliance. Remarkable storytelling!" ―Amanda Peters, author of The Berry Pickers
"Michelle Porter is a gem of a writer. Giving voice to our natural kin, A Glacier's Guide to Dying is a poignant novel, light in its delivery but full of weight in its afterglow. I loved this one." ―Katherena Bermette, author of Real Ones
This information about A Glacier's Guide to Dying was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michelle Porter's debut novel, A Grandmother Begins the Story, won the 2024 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was a finalist for the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Her previous books include the memoir Scratching River and Approaching Fire, a work of creative nonfiction about her great-grandfather, a fiddler from the Red River, which was shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award. She is the descendent of a long line of Métis storytellers and a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. She lives in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, where she teaches creative writing and Métis Literature at Memorial University.
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