The Wanton Troopers

In this new edition of Alden Nowlan’s poignant first novel, published posthumously in 1988, a boy growing up in a small Nova Scotia mill town is abandoned by the young mother he adores. Family relationships, sexual confusions, and the pains of love are rendered with deep and authentic feeling. This is an essential book for all readers who have admired the work of this major Canadian writer.

AUTHOR

Herb Curtis

David Richards has written two historical novels for young adults, Soldier Boys (Thistledown Press, 1993) and Lady at Batoche (Thistledown Press, 1999) and The Plough’s Share, a historical novel set in late nineteenth century England and detailing Canada’s Barr Colonist experience. David Richards lives in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Reviews

Young Kevin O’Brien is caught between heaven and hell, torn between the tenderness of his young, adulterous mother and the brutality of his work-gnarled, drunken father. Kevin’s world is unrelenting: bone-crushing poverty, bullying, his first adolescent yearnings, and the fire of sin. Yet, in Kevin’s imagination, there is hope.

The Wanton Troopers, Alden Nowlan’s first novel, was published after his death in 1983. This Reader’s Guide edition includes the final page omitted from the original edition and restores many of Nowlan’s original phrases. It also features a poignant afterword by David Adams Richards, an extended biographical note by Nowlan scholar Patrick Toner, and excerpts from an interview by Jon Pederson conducted a year before Nowlan’s death for the celebrated NFB film, Alden Nowlan: An Introduction.