A Witness To Life

Synopsis

"A BEAUTIFUL NOVEL"
-The Toronto Star

"Eternity is in the present. Eternity is in the palm of the hand."

On a streetcar, on Christmas Day, 1950, clutching the chrome rail in front of him, Martin Radey looks at the woman seated beside him, a stranger, and utters his last words: "I can't breathe." Like millions, billions before him, it is his turn to die.

But death is not what he expected. The journey has only begun. From 1880 to 1950, time happens to the world around him, not to memory, because memory, he discovers, is beyond time, traveling forward with him, shaping the earth, the sky, the heart.

The prequel to the widely celebrated SHADOW OF ASHLAND, A WITNESS TO LIFE "is an emotionally charged experience that will not soon be forgotten." (Dallas Morning News)

"In A WITNESS TO LIFE, acclaimed Toronto fantasist Green draws us into Martin Radey's life through a device-shape-changing-that owes much to Eastern and aboriginal spirituality. Green is a lyrical, contemplative writer whose fantastic tendencies are held firmly in check by the realism demanded by this fictional biography. It comes alive in a way only the best fiction can."
-The Globe and Mail

"A phenomenal idea, like applying the detail of Joyce's Dublin or the techniques of Dos Passos's USA to a single family."
-Kirkus Reviews

"A WITNESS TO LIFE is a moving vision of the way life used to be lived. Along with SHADOW OF ASHLAND, it indicates the magic of the everyday, and the necessity of recognizing that magic while we can."
-The Edmonton Journal

"Profoundly moving."
-Booklist

WORLD FANTASY AWARD FINALIST