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New Titles
www3.telus.net/neworphicpublishers-hekkanen New Orphic
Publishers 706 Mill Street,
Nelson, B.C. V1L 4S5 Canada To buy any of the following books, add $7.00 for postage and handling and
send your cheque to the above address. Of
a Fire Beyond the Hills by Ernest Hekkanen A Finalist for the George
Ryga Award, 2008 ISBN 978-1-894842-13-6 $25.00 Based on news stories that aired on CNN, ABC, FOX and
the CBC, as well as articles that appeared in The Los Angles Times, The New York Times, The Vancouver
Sun and The Globe and Mail, Hekkanen’s novel, Of a Fire Beyond the Hills, is written in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night and Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. During a time of war, an intrepid group of anti-war
activists in Nelson, British Columbia decides to erect a War Resisters
Monument to U.S. draft dodgers and deserters. It results in an angry outburst
by right-wingers across North America, in particular by the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, who encourage President Bush to condemn the project. The local
Chamber of Commerce is flooded by hysterical hate mail urging Nelson’s city
fathers to ban the War Resisters Monument. When Ernest Hekkanen offers his front yard as a
possible site for the statue, the mayor and city councilors seek to put a
stop to it out of fear that it will ruin Nelson’s tourist industry. “This
novel is about fear and patriotism,” Hekkanen says. “And hysteria.” “Of a
Fire Beyond the Hills resonates not as an
advertisement for [Hekkanen’s] bravery so much as a defense of it… [H]aving born the brunt of hostility from
the Chamber of Commerce types, he has struck back with his considerable
writing talents, providing a frequently brilliant and often funny local
history of the wave of fear, patriotism and hysteria that effectively blew
the lid off Nelson’s image as a ‘laid-back’ and idyllic community.” -
Alan Twigg, “Hekkanen’s
Progress,” www.abcbookworld.com “Of a
Fire Beyond the Hills chronicles the verbal
confrontation of pro– and anti-war groups that culminates on [Hekkanen’s]
front lawn… In true American fashion—in the fashion of our forefathers who
dared to stand up for our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness—Hekkanen caustically calls to accounting pro-war individuals of
both Canadian and American extraction… In these difficult times when civil
rights have been eroded under pressure from a government that has sought to
extend its power to include torture and to fabricate bases to justify an
unfounded war, voices such as Hekkanen’s remind us of what is truly at
stake.” - Beth L. Virtanen, PhD, University of Alberta, www.finnala.com “In Of
a Fire Beyond the Hills, the latest book by
Nelson author, Ernest Hekkanen, he uses the city as his philosophical soapbox
to show how the West Kootenay city is representative of a larger problem
moving beneath the surface of democracy—totalitarianism.” -
Timothy Schafer, Nelson Daily News “Anyone who has lived in Nelson for a while will
quickly recognize people and places depicted in [Of a Fire Beyond the Hills]. While the story was inspired by real events,
Hekkanen insists that it is a work of fiction….His writing clearly evokes a
particular time and place. While Nelson provides the setting for the novel,
Hekkanen’s message is universal.” - Anna Kirkpatrick, The Express _________________________________________________________________________________________ The
Reluctant Author: The
Life and Literature of Ernest Hekkanen by Margrith Schraner ISBN 978-1-894842-10-5 $25.00 “[The Reluctant Author] is both a work of investigation and of love wherein
the author shares with us and exposes to us the hard shell and the soft underbelly of the writer, poet, artist Ernest
Hekkanen… Schraner examines Hekkanen’s
temperament, his drive, and his use of multiple media in the expression of
his artistic vision. With
sensitivity and discernment, Schraner captures his conflicts and his
accomplishments, and presents them without sentimentality.” – Beth L.
Virtanen, PhD, University of Alberta, Journal of Finnish Studies “Ernest Hekkanen
is Canadian literature’s true iconoclast and most resolute maverick. He
deserves to be the subject of a book.” – Bill Gaston, author of Sointula, Mount
Appetite, and Tall Lives, Professor of Creative Writing,
University of Victoria “The
Reluctant Author abounds with poignant
quotes from Ernest Hekkanen… It is quite engaging and well done… Hekkanen’s
own writings remind me of Aki Kaurismäki’s films: They both dispense black
humor and their characters are determined not to comply with the demands of
‘utterly middle-class existence.’” – Börje Vähämäki, PhD, Professor of
Finnish Studies, University of Toronto, editor of The Journal of Finnish Studies “I’ve published a few of Ernest Hekkanen’s short
stories [in the New
World Finn]. I’ve always wanted to know more
about the man who concocts these tales, and why he writes them. Margrith
Schraner answered nearly all my questions in this brief book about the man
she knows so well.” - Gerry Henkel, editor, New World Finn ______________________________________________________________________________ Shadows on a Cave Wall by Ernest Hekkanen ISBN
978-1-894842-11-2 $20.00 Although we
never get to directly meet Sebastian Salo—who, over the course of his life,
has been a prizefighter, musician, hunter, translator and fiction writer —we
view him through the eyes of those who have known him, and none of them seem
to have neutral feelings. The
discovery of his body two months after his death allows rumors, stories and
gossip to flow like water from a burst dam, and his chronicler, Jacques
Dupuis, eager collects and collates them. Salo is man
who rankles or delights. He is an eccentric, independence-loving
Finnish-Canadian who isn’t averse to annoying people. But to those who have
enjoyed his companionship, he is a loyal friend, benefactor, champion and
romantic figure with a penchant for the macabre. “Shadows
on a Cave Wall is an amusing and
fascinating character portrait of a former prize-fighter, musician and
fiction writer…. Hekkanen simultaneously provides a sly and revealing study
of the town itself through the voices and prejudices and emotions of its
citizens.” - Alan Twigg, Author
Bank, www.abcbookworld.com “There is a fine sense of detail in [Shadows on a Cave Wall] that makes the Rue St-Sebastien in Paris where Salo
spent a year following the death of his lover, the home of Salo’s sister with
its plastic Finnish Santa Claus in a grass skirt next to the television, and
Salo’s home in the West Kootenay town of Bastion, British Columbia, come
alive with the same vibrancy… [It] is a book that makes the readers enjoy
their roles as voyeurs, never certain but always hoping that their take on
events is the way it was.” - Beth L. Virtanen,
PhD, University of Alberta, Journal
of Finnish Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ To Break the Wheel of War by D. B. Wilton ISBN
978-1-894842-12-9 $19.99 To Break the Wheel of War is a radical, global and concise exploration of human
consciousness and its propensity for inner and outer conflict. It explores
consciousness and culture from the parallel perspectives of Western biology
and Buddhist psychology, showing how conflict evolves from primate survival
drive to the evolution of language and abstract thinking which enables the
dualistic mindset of absolute good versus absolute evil. Between the two, the
dualistic mind struggles in a nightmare circus which Buddhists call the wheel
of samsara and Western myth calls fate. The author’s faith is that we humans
are capable of building a world of enduring peace, but only if we completely
understand and deconstruct the wheel of war. |