About this ebook
There is the young neighbour of Reuben Sachs, an artist, who shot himself only weeks after painting an image of a hanged man. There is Reverend Graham Lund who wonders about his family’s future after visiting the deathbed of a hundred-years-old woman, a woman who used to be a brazen war reporter. A man, blinded by war, revisits the beauty of Venice in his dreams, and a snowbound criminal named Wicker cares for an old pony and a three-legged dog while remembering his childhood. Men and women, faithful and unfaithful, think on the past in their creep towards mortality.
Each of these stories is a case study in loss and recovery, and Helwig remembers these fictional characters with a reverence and detail ordinarily reserved for family. The stories and the times change, but the mystery explored in each remains the same: What is this life that I have lived, and where have those people gone? Mystery Stories is an intricate addition to Helwig’s already large canon of rich, thoughtful stories populated by densely real people.
Stories in this book have previously been published in Journal of Canadian Fiction, Queen’s Quarterly, Atlantica: Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland, 98: Best Canadian Stories, 03: Best Canadian Stories, 05: Best Canadian Stories, and 06: Best Canadian Stories.
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About the author
Born in Toronto in 1938, David Helwig attended the University of Toronto and the University of Liverpool. His first stories were published in Canadian Forum and The Montrealer while he was still an undergraduate. He then went on to teach at Queen’s University. He worked in summer stock with the Straw Hat Players, mostly as a business manager and technician, rubbing elbows with such actors as Gordon Pinsent, Jackie Burroughs and Timothy Findley.
While at Queen’s University, Helwig did some informal teaching in Collins Bay Penitentiary and subsequently wrote A Book About Billie with a former inmate.
Helwig has also served as literary manager of CBC Television Drama, working under John Hirsch, supervising the work of story editors and the department’s relations with writers.
In 1980, he gave up teaching and became a full-time freelance writer. He has done a wide range of writing -- fiction, poetry, essays -- authoring more than twenty books. Helwig is also the founder and long-time editor of the Best Canadian Stories annual. In 2009 he was named as a member of the Order of Canada.
David Helwig lives in the village of Eldon on Prince Edward Island, where he is the third Poet Laureate. He indulges his passion for vocal music by singing with choirs in Montreal, Kingston, and Charlottetown. He has appeared as bass soloist in Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mozart’s Requiem.
