Descendents of the Irish who settled in Ferryland, Lord Baltimore’s Catholic colony in Newfoundland, the Johnstons "went from being sea-fearing farmers to sea-faring fishermen." Each generation resolves to escape the hardships of life at sea, but their connection to this fantastically beautiful but harsh land is as eternal as the rugged shoreline, and the separations that result between generations may be as inevitable as the winters they endure. Unfulfilled dreams haunt this family history and make Baltimore’s Mansion a thrilling and captivating book.
Author
Wayne Johnston
WAYNE JOHNSTON was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. His #1 nationally bestselling novels include First Snow, Last Light; The Custodian of Paradise; The Navigator of New York; and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Baltimore’s Mansion, a memoir about his father and grandfather, won the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, published in 1998, was nominated for sixteen national and international awards including the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and was a Canada Reads finalist defended by Justin Trudeau. In 2011, Johnston was awarded the Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award honouring the work of a writer in mid-career. In 2023, his memoir Jennie’s Boy won The Stephen Leacock Gold Medal for Humour and was also a Canada Reads finalist, in 2025.
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