Joseph Smallwood was born on Christmas Eve in 1900, and was fated to lead his native Newfoundland out of English rule and into the arms of its giant neighbour, Canada. He suffered from bad luck and worse judgement, but his rise to power seemed almost inevitable.
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Joseph Smallwood was born on Christmas Eve in 1900, and was fated to lead his native Newfoundland out of English rule and into the arms of its giant neighbour, Canada. He suffered from bad luck and worse judgement, but his rise to power seemed almost inevitable.
Read Less
Newfoundland is a Province of Canada, way out east, in the middle of the North Atlantic, a stone's throw from Ireland. Its people are eccentric and peculiar, its history similarly so. Joey Smallwood was the first Premier of Newfoundland when the rocky island joined Canada as a tenth province, rejecting independence from Britain or colonial status by popular referendum. This story should not be compelling reading, but it is. Most Americans know of Newfoundland only from Annie Proulx's "Shipping News," but here readers have an opportunity to read the "real stuff," actual Newfoundland characters put through actual historical events by a marvelous writer, in the form of a fictionalized autobiography of Joey Smallwood. Incidentally, for those interested in such things, it is also a great piece of neo- or post- colonial writing in the spirit of Naipaul, Keats, et al.
