When Sean McFall encounters golden-haired David Goldberg and his larger-than-life father, Saul, he is dazzled by the family’s riches, power, and ease in social situations. The bright lives of the Goldbergs are profoundly different from those of Sean’s working-class parents.

But as Sean grows up and is pulled closer to the centre of the Goldberg family by the gravitational force of their wealth and position, he discovers a tyrannical and abusive patriarch, an estranged relative bent on revenge, and dark family secrets.

As he struggles to reconcile his first impressions with the realities he later confronts, Sean must determine who he is, what he will stand for, and whether he can resist the attraction that has dominated his life.

Rich in understanding of the relationships between parents and children, the loyalty we show our friends, and how a family’s past haunts its present, The Great Goldbergs is about the compromises we make in pursuit of wealth and acceptance, and for love.

Born in Montreal, Daniel Goodwin grew up in a bookish and artistic Montreal household (Irving Layton was an omnipresent great-uncle, Betty Goodwin a more distant aunt). After a misspent youth writing poetry, he ran away to the East Coast in his mid-twenties to join an oil company. He has since lived in four provinces and worked as a teacher, journalist, corporate communicator and government relations executive, but through it all he continued to write, and his poems and essays have appeared in several Canadian journals and newspapers including Literary Review of Canada, Contemporary Verse II, The Antigonish Review, The Globe and Mail, and Calgary Herald. Goodwin's first novel, Sons and Fathers - about that special relationship, but also about politics, journalism, poetry, and spin - will be published in fall 2014 by Linda Leith Publishing. Goodwin currently lives in Calgary with his wife and three children.

Daniel Goodwin's profile page

• Short-listed, Vine National Canadian Jewish Book Awards