Vital Statistics

1-897142-21-8
$24.95 C | $22.95 US
6.5 x 9.5 pb
320 pages
March 2007

About the Author

Since graduating from the University of British Columbia, Claire Mulligan's award-winning short stories have appeared in many literary publications. She has travelled extensively and currently lives in Pennsylvania. This is her first novel.

Purchase Online

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If you are an individual, we encourage you to ask for our books at your local bookstore. If you'd like to order directly from our distributor, you can e-mail us at distribution@
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1-800-665-3302 or fax us at
(604) 574-9942.

"A complex and evocative exploration of the repayment of ethical debts and the power of human memory in forming personal identity." -Canadian Literature

"Mulligan evokes the chaos of the Cariboo Gold Rush with an authenticity that convinces us that this is how it must have been. A pageturning story." -Richard C. Bocking

At the height of the Cariboo Gold Rush, two men come face to face with themselves in this absorbing historical novel.

The colony of British Columbia, 1863. "Boston" Jim Milroy, a lone trapper and trader with an eidetic memory and a tragic unreckoned past, has become obsessed with reciprocating a seemingly minor kindness from the loquacious Dora Hume, a settler in the Cowichan Valley of Vancouver Island. Dora's kindness and her life story both haunt Boston Jim, and his precise recollections inspire his attempts to buy something suitable for her in return. Eventually his search leads him to the gold rush town of Barkerville on the trail of Dora's capricious husband Eugene—the one thing, after all, that she really wants.  www.clairemulligan.com