"Splendid!"

The NEW YORK TIMES

“a true masterpiece."

Simon Winchester

"[An] uncommonly wise and moving book."

Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

"Wry, informative, and deeply moving ... the literary tour de force of the year."

Philip Marchand, The Toronto Star

Emulating the circuitous tales told by his mother's relatives, the Goodyears of Newfoundland, David Macfalane weaves the major events of the island's twentieth century--the ravages of tuberculosis; the great seal-hunt disaster; the bitter Confederation debate, and above all, the First World War--into his own tale of the ill-starred fortunes of his family. He brings to life a multi-generational cast of characters who are as colourful as only Newfoundlanders can be. With humour, insight, and genuine love for those heroes and charlatans, pirates and dreamers, he explores the meaning of family and the consequences of forgotten history.

"Intense and beautiful. . . . One of the finest and mostly intriguing miniature elegies that I have read in many years."

Christopher Hitchens, Newsday

"The Danger Tree is easily one of the most readable and beautifully written books to emerge from Canada in recent years."

Mordecai Richler, Saturday Night

"An altogether remarkable, frequently funny, genuinely moving, and utterly original book."

Jan Morris

"I've just discovered The Danger Tree and am stunned. It is so good. [It's] about the best prose ever to come out of this country, for my money."

Alice Munro

"The Danger Tree is a masterpiece. David Macfarlane is an architect of the past, building extraordinary memory mansions in which the reader feels eerily at home."

Alberto Manguel

"The Danger Tree is absolutely riveting: an extraordinary mixture of history, memory, fiction, and technique that succeeds at every level. I was touched, I was exhilarated, and I was thrilled to read a book that has risen to the challenge of recording Canada's past, the past in all our hearts."

Michael Ignatieff

"Macfarlane's debut is an auspicious one for a country that now, more than ever in its history, needs popular authors who can turn the past into stories that illuminate the present."

Maclean's