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Biography & Autobiography Artists, Architects, Photographers

The House with the Parapet Wall

by (author) John Terpstra

Publisher
Gaspereau Press Ltd.
Initial publish date
Sep 2014
Category
Artists, Architects, Photographers
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781554471393
    Publish Date
    Sep 2014
    List Price
    $24.95

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Description

Grieving the diminishment and death of his elderly mother, John Terpstra finds solace in a seemingly unusual place: the stories (both historical and fanciful) of the nineteenth-century houses in his Hamilton neighbourhood and of the families which have inhabited them. With a well-honed knack for the circuitous route, Terpstra tackles weighty questions like ‘Why must we die?’ by following his imaginative curiosity into the bricks-and-mortar matters of our daily lives, understanding that the dwellings we construct do more than just shed the weather, but are also physical manifestations of our notions of ‘family’ and ‘home’.

 

About the author

John Terpstra has published many books and chapbooks of poetry, the most recent of which, Disarmament, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2004. A retrospective of his work, Two or Three Guitars: Selected Poems, was published in 2006. Terpstra has also published three prose projects: Falling Into Place, a creative investigation of a giant glacial sandbar which lies beneath one of Canada’s busiest transportation corridors; The Boys, or, Waiting for the Electrician’s Daughter, the story of his wife’s three brothers, who lived with muscular dystrophy until their early twenties; and Skin Boat: Acts of Faith and Other Navigations, a frank reflection on faith and church in a secular era. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

John Terpstra's profile page