Showing Red Goodwin by John Wilson

This is "…a story of the summer of 1918, when I was sixteen. The summer when the Great War was four years old, the Russian Czar and his family were shot, the great influenza epidemic began and the first airmail service started. But my story doesn’t deal with those world-shaking events. It is about a lake, a dozen square miles of forest and the lives of a few ordinary people that intersected one hot July week all those years ago… I shiver and pull my coat tighter against the bitter, stinging rain, but it makes no difference. It is not the cold that is making me shiver, it's the past.

After Will Ryan's father is killed on the Western Front, he's sent out to live with his uncle in a remote coal-mining town in Canada. Almost immediately, Will is thrown into a complex world of racism, greed and the mine workers' struggle for safe working conditions. The only bright spark is Morag McLean, the beautiful daughter of a Scottish miner.
Will soon realizes that everything happening around him seems centred on one man, Albert 'Red' Goodwin, a union activist and draft dodger being hunted in the nearby hills. Will only wants a simple life and romantic picnics with Morag, but events won't let him be and he is forced to take sides as he is drawn inexorably towards a tragic confrontation in the woods that will change his life forever.

"…the story is exciting and filled with twists and tragedy and brings the attitudes of an era to life…both instructive and engaging." British Columbia History

"…a great novel; one that would be especially enjoyed by history-lovers and readers who enjoy stories with much personal dilemma." Whatif Magazine

"This novel draws the reader into the conflicting forces that tear at Will's mind, feeling in turn empathy for the Chinese workers (and) for Red Goodwin and the men hiding in the bush…Morag and Jimmy demand Will examine his own actions and ideals, and, in the process, challenge the reader…John Wilson…captures the stratified life in a mining town in a historically accurate way." CM Magazine. Highly Recommended.

Red Maple Award finalist
Chocolate Lily Award finalist