Hard Light

New light on Michael Crummey's classic depiction of Newfoundland and Labrador's past.

On the occasion of the press's 40th anniversary, Brick Books is proud to present the fifth of six new editions of classic books from our back catalogue. This edition of Hard Light features a new Introduction by Lisa Moore, a new Afterword by the author and a new cover and design by the renowned typographer Robert Bringhurst.

In Hard Light, first published in 1998, Crummey retells and reimagines his father's and others' stories of outport Newfoundland and the Labrador fishery. These deeply felt poems are rooted in the places where "human desire comes up against rock" (John Steffler).

I have a fair trial on the fishing line now,
being three summers out from home, two summers on
the French Shore, four down on the Labrador,
and three trips this year to the Banks of Newfoundland,
and this is what I have learned to be the price of fish
— "'The price of fish.' (September, 1887)"

"In these stories and poems, an intimate, bright world flares up, glowing in the darkness of recent history, full-blown and vivid." — Lisa Moore, from the Introduction