A novel dramatizing the various and often conflicting ways members of an English-speaking Montreal family try to understand and cope with the Referendum crisis of 1980 in Quebec, The Restoration is one of the few literary looks Canada has at those formative and turbulent years. And with its primary motif of the burning of historic buildings and the destruction of a Canadian political legacy, The Restoration says a good deal about the tensions that continue to beset the country.
"A good, solid novel, something rich and important...." That's what the American novelist Elizabeth Spencer had to say about the book. Wrote The Globe and Mail in its review: "Keith Henderson knows most intimately those parts of the anglo-Quebec community who have been most abused by recent Canadian history, the marginal middle class citizenry of places like Roxboro." As Canada grapples with the current instalment of its lingering cultural and constitutional crisis, The Restoration adds a special and indispensible dimension to the national political discourse.

Keith Henderson has published five other novels with DC Books, The Restoration (1992), The Beekeeper (1990), The Roof Walkers (2013), Acqua Sacra (2016), and Sasquatch and the Green Sash (2018), political essays from when he was Quebec correspondent for the Financial Post (Staying Canadian,1997), as well as a prize-winning book of short stories, The Pagan Nuptials of Julia, 2006). He led the Equality Party during the separatist referendum of 1995, taught Canadian Literature at Vanier College for many years, has sat on numerous boards in Anglo-Quebec including ELAN and the AELAQ, and is currently President of The Special Committee for Canadian Unity. He is completing a critical autobiography with special focus on the works of Edith Wharton.

Keith Henderson's profile page

“A good, solid novel, something rich and important....” That’s what the American novelist Elizabeth Spencer had to say about the book. Wrote The Globe and Mail in its review: “Keith Henderson knows most intimately those parts of the anglo-Quebec community who have been most abused by recent Canadian history, the marginal middle class citizenry of places like Roxboro.” As Canada grapples with the current instalment of its lingering cultural and constitutional crisis, The Restoration adds a special and indispensable dimension to the national political discourse."