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2014 Longlist

Finton Moon

ABOUT
THE BOOK

In this adult gothic fairytale Finton Moon is an unusual child who feels like an alien. A gentle soul growing up in the rough town of Darwin, Newfoundland, he lives with his strict Catholic mother and grandmother, lawless father and two older brothers.

But Finton’s parents quickly discover that he is extraordinary-for he has been born with the ability to heal with his hands. As he grows older, his miraculous talent becomes more apparent and useful, even as it isolates him further from those around him. While Finton Moon wants nothing more than to belong, he lives in a world that sees him as other, and his greatest fear is that he will be trapped forever with these people who both misunderstand and abuse him.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Gerard
Collins

Gerard Collins is a writer and teacher whose fiction has appeared in various journals and won a handful of literary prizes, including the 2012 Ches Crosbie Barristers / Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction and the Percy Janes First Novel Award.

He was born in Bond’s Path, Placentia, Newfoundland and has lived most of his adult life in St. John’s. For many years, he was, alternately, a guy with a shovel, an agricultural inspector, a printer, newspaper reporter, high school English teacher, substitute teacher, tutor, vagabond, musician, songwriter, grad student, and TV background actor.

Gerard has a Ph.D. in American literature (MUN), with a specialization in ghost fictions, and an M.A. from Acadia University, with a thesis on the Gothic work of Edgar Allan Poe. For over a decade, he has been teaching English Language and Literature at Memorial University of Newfoundland while writing short stories. Finton Moon is his first novel.

Gerard Collins is a writer and teacher whose fiction has appeared in various journals and won a handful of literary prizes, including the 2012 Ches Crosbie Barristers / Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction and the Percy Janes First Novel Award.

He was born in Bond’s Path, Placentia, Newfoundland and has lived most of his adult life in St. John’s. For many years, he was, alternately, a guy with a shovel, an agricultural inspector, a printer, newspaper reporter, high school English teacher, substitute teacher, tutor, vagabond, musician, songwriter, grad student, and TV background actor.

Gerard has a Ph.D. in American literature (MUN), with a specialization in ghost fictions, and an M.A. from Acadia University, with a thesis on the Gothic work of Edgar Allan Poe. For over a decade, he has been teaching English Language and Literature at Memorial University of Newfoundland while writing short stories. Finton Moon is his first novel.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

His ability to heal with his hands marks Finton Moon as different and alien in the small rural town of Darwin, Newfoundland. His family, friends and townspeople misunderstand and abuse him. Escape comes through reading and visiting his imaginary world of the Planet of Solitude. Will some near tragedies suck Finton in to the monotony and mayhem of small town life or will he break free to see the world and seek a soul to save?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
15/05/2011
Publisher
Creative Book Publishing

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