White Coal City

Robert Boschman grew up in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, on Treaty 6 lands. He is Professor of American Literature at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.

CONTENTS Kinship Chart Saskatoon Coroner's Inquest Transcript, July 2, 1940 Prologue Between Two Rivers White Coal The Bumper Break My PA Acknowledgements and Notes

"This is a beautiful, harrowing book. It deals with dark matters on intimate, familial, and global scales, as its author reckons with environmental cataclysm, toxic masculinity, and colonial complicity. Yet the story is shared with such generosity and gentleness that it sings in the reader's mind long after the final page is turned." Sam McKegney , author of Masculindians and Magic Weapons "The story is an inward reflective journey that spans many years. It examines the human spirit, its hurts, its survival, its hopes and its faith that life will improve as each generation accepts its follies and moves beyond them toward universal healing." Louise Bernice Halfe , author of Burning in this Midnight Dream "Robert Boschman's White Coal City is more than just another memoir. The images are vivid and the commentary insightful. The town and its citizens come fully to life in this narrative that is dark, unflinching and intriguing as the author illuminates the past lives of singular hard-edged characters living in a city most Canadians know nothing about." Lesley Choyce , author of Broken Man on a Halifax Pier "The stories in the latter half of the book are alone worth the price of admission, almost elegiac in the way they are retold and have been handed down piecemeal over generations ... there are indelible, lived-in moments and haunting images in White Coal City." Quill & Quire " White Coal City paints a deep picture of existence in a complicated town. Through the smoke of forest fires, Sweet Caps, Number 7s and winter car exhaust, Boschman masterfully describes the juxtaposition of both the freedom and constraints of living in a community fraught with colonialism, poverty and sheer exposure to the elements." Winnipeg Free Press "A masterpiece of creative nonfiction." SaskBooks