The Piano Tuner traces the life of Red Mike MacDonald, who for 50 years has tuned pianos in Cape Breton Island homes, churches and concert halls. When asked why people still have this acoustic instrument, its 88 hammers, its 230 strings, Red Mike says it’s for the love of real sound. But real sound for Red Mike is in the form of jazz. As a major figure in the Cape Breton jazz community, the stylish double-bass player introduces us to its musicians and fans, an illustrious group whose origins stretch back to a swinging Sydney of the 1930's.
NOVELS
North of Smokey
Award-winning author David Doucette’s haunting novel of Frank Curtis, whose tragic boyhood hunting accident does not stop him from becoming the world champion of a brutal sport. Frank will find that his greatest adversary, however, will be his coming home to Cape Breton.
The Blue Sky of Winter
Town searchers comb a dense snowy woods for young Grace, who entered in the late afternoon following a kitten. A searcher stops, puts a hand out for a single snowflake. The forecasted blizzard has begun.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Freda
At 66, Freda wakes up to look at Smokey Mountain, the seacoast mountain she has been afraid to go over all her life. It’s where the milkman careened over to his death when she was a young girl - just as it did in her dream the day before it happened. No, she thinks. Today,I will go. It’s either that or die here.
