ABOUT
THE BOOK

In the white-shingled houses of Beinn Barra, young men shine their shoes and young girls curl their hair. It’s Saturday night, there’s a dance in the parish hall, and Benny Doucet is playing. They come from all over Cape Breton to hear “Strings” Doucet play the fiddle.

But it is 1939. England has declared war on Germany. Canada will march beside the mother country. Three friends enlist in the legendary Cape Breton Highlanders: fisherman Hector MacDonald, gifted musician Benny Doucet, and Calum MacPherson, who has been accepted at Dalhousie to study medicine. The three friends sail off to war in November 1941.

The families wait for word of their boys. Gunner MacDonald, a returned man himself, knows only too well what his fisherman son will witness in the trenches of Europe. Joachim and Ona MacPherson seek, and fail to find, solace in each other. Napoleon and Flora Doucet finger their rosary beads at the kitchen table and pray for Benny’s safety.