Cupids, page 14
Winter still crystallized the cove, hanging over the wharf rails and glistening on the dark hills and cliffs. But the sun was slowly warming the land. I could almost hear the movement of the roots and stems as they pushed through the earth and opened tongue-like buds of palest green. Light scattered over the waves that undulated like long stretches of fabric held at either end of a room and fluttered. In these movements I seemed to behold a perpetual, joyful dance of fin and tail. This, I found myself thinking, could indeed be a place of security, a place of love. At the very least, our time had come to live in faith.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank publishers Garry Cranford, Margo Cranford, and Jerry Cranford for their belief in this novel, and everyone at Flanker Press for their positive ethos and attention to detail. Many thanks to editor Ed Kavanagh for sharing his insight and knowledge. My appreciation to The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council which supported this project with a writing grant. And thanks, as always, to my wife, Maura Hanrahan, and to my daughter Jemma to whom this book is quite fittingly dedicated.
PAUL BUTLER is the author of several critically acclaimed novels including Hero, 1892, NaGeira, Easton’s Gold, Easton, and Stoker’s Shadow. His work has appeared on the judges’ lists for Canada Reads, the Relit longlist, and he was a winner in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards four times between 2003 and 2008. A graduate of Norman Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre, Butler has written for the Globe and Mail, The Beaver, Books in Canada, Atlantic Books Today, and Canadian Geographic, and has also contributed to CBC Radio, local and national. He lives in St. John’s.
Paul Butler, Cupids
