When disaster strikes a Nova Scotia mine, killing twenty-six men, a town and a family are changed irrevocably.
Shifting back and forth in time, Leo McKay Jr.'s unflinching, bestselling work of Atlantic Canadian fiction excavates the rich interior lives of the men and women of the Burrows family: Ziv and Arvel, brothers drawn back to the mine where their ancestors toiled; their father, Ennis, a former union organizer whose body is failing him; Ziv's ex-girlfriend, Meta, who is attempting to start over in Japan; and Arvel's wife, Jackie, who leaves her husband's drinking and volatile temper behind for a better life in Halifax.
Set in the aftermath of the explosion and ensuing investigation, Twenty-six is a "cleanly crafted, richly evocative portrait of a community of families" (Vancouver Sun), inspired in part by the tragic Westray mining disaster. This critically acclaimed work, now back in print for a new generation, lays bare the complexities of intergenerational trauma, industrial violence, and the universal human struggle.
