The Hour of the Fox
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$18.95
Published on Jul 31, 2018 | 304 Pages
Published on Jul 31, 2018 | 304 Pages
Dear Reader,
The Hour of the Fox is a story about courage; not the noisy “courage” of bravura and daring, but the much more interesting quiet, sustained courage to hang in and endure in the face of adversities that seem all but overwhelming. Somehow to find the inner resources needed now, and in the end perhaps to heal, or at least in good moments, as Margaret Bradley says in the story, to be able to glimpse the shape of thoughts and emotions that might make healing possible.
Along the way and in the various countries and cultures where I’ve lived and worked, I’ve met a number of men and women with this particular quality, and I’ll never forget them. I know I’m not alone in this. In a way, people like that become part of your inner life past and present, and if for some reason you lose touch with them you always wonder about their destiny, how life has worked out for them. What you really want is to meet them again, years later, and sit with them even just for a cup of coffee and ask them that very question: how did life work out for you?
In The Hour of the Fox that is more or less what I am doing with my main character. Margaret Bradley is an accomplished professional and a wife and a mother, and I am learning from her. I’m sitting forward to listen and I can see and feel and understand how grief can imprint itself on a woman, and on her marriage, and how the promise of redemption and healing can be found in unexpected places and situations, but in the end invariably within herself.
Like The Piano Maker, The Hour of the Fox is set in Nova Scotia, this time on the Atlantic coast. Not all that long ago I spent seven good years on the South Shore; I worked in the city and crewed on wooden sailing ships up and down that coast and I sat around fires with some remarkable people, and the memories of all that will always be with me.
Thank your for giving The Hour of the Fox a good read. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Best wishes,
Kurt Palka
Spring 2018
Author
Kurt Palka
The Autumn of Madame Hélène is Kurt Palka’s ninth novel, following the bestsellers The Piano Maker, Clara, shortlisted for the Hammett Prize, The Hour of the Fox, and The Orphan Girl. His work has been published throughout the Commonwealth, and in nine countries in Europe and Asia.
Learn More about Kurt Palka