Seldom

A Searing Memoir of Secrets and Lies in a Newfoundland Fishing Village.

Like a real-life counterpart to 'The Shipping News', this powerful and beautifully written memoir takes you to the heart of a rugged Newfoundland community and into the terrifying secret life of one family.

In a narrative that swirls like a Newfoundland storm, Dawn Rae Downton recreates the story of her mother's family in the tiny fishing villages of Seldom and Little Bay Islands, remote outports off the north-east coast of Canada. In these isolated, weather-beaten communities, forever at the mercy of the cold, capricious sea, everyone pulled together through shared hardships and tragedy.

But none knew - or chose to know - what was going on in 'Skipper' Sidney Wiseman and his wife Ethel's house. None except the children. For long months each year when their father was home from the sea, he lay on a daybed in the kitchen like a serpent, watching his wife and children, waiting for an excuse to strike out in rages as violent and unpredictable as the weather.

This is a stunning account of a family too proud, of one man's demons and one woman's indomitable love, and of the secrets and lies that both protected the family's reputation and blighted their lives.