A lonely boy in a prairie town befriends a
local outsider in 1947 and then witnesses a shocking murder. Based on a true story.
Canwood, Saskatchewan, 1947. Leonard Flint, a
lonely boy in a small farming town befriends the local outsider, a man known as
Rabbit Foot Bill. Bill doesn’t talk much, but he allows Leonard to accompany
him as he sets rabbit snares and to visit his small, secluded dwelling.
Being with Bill is everything to young Leonard—an
escape from school, bullies and a hard father. So his shock is absolute when he
witnesses Bill commit a sudden violent act and loses him to prison.
Fifteen years on, as a newly graduated doctor
of psychiatry, Leonard arrives at the Weyburn Mental Hospital, both excited and
intimidated by the massive institution known for its experimental LSD trials.
To Leonard’s great surprise, at the Weyburn he is reunited with Bill and soon
becomes fixated on discovering what happened on that fateful day in 1947.
Based on a true story, this page-turning novel
from a master stylist examines the frailty and resilience of the human mind.
HELEN HUMPHREYS is the author of many acclaimed and award-winning works including Followed by the Lark, The Ghost Orchard, Coventry, Machines Without Horses, Nocturne and Rabbit Foot Bill, which has been optioned for television. She has won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, a Lambda Literary Award for Fiction and the Toronto Book Award. She has also been a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Trillium Book Award and CBC’s Canada Reads. Humphreys is the recipient of the Harbourfront Festival Prize for literary excellence and of the Writers’ Trust Matt Cohen Award in Celebration of a Writing Life. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.View all by Helen Humphreys
