The Hour of the Fox

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
 

From the bestselling author of The Piano Maker comes a stunning, profoundly moving story about motherhood, grief, marriage, and friendship. For fans of M. L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans.

Margaret Bradley is the most senior associate at a prestigious law firm, and she is on track to make partner. It is the 1970s; her climb up the career ladder in this male-dominated profession has been difficult, but with hard work she has made herself one of the best in it. She is dedicated to her work and is happily married until one day her entire world is shattered by the sudden death of her son Andrew, a military pilot. Now, Margaret lives with a heavy, all-encompassing sense of loss and regret that is pushing her further and further away from the person she once knew herself to be, and from her husband, Jack, a successful geologist and a loving and loyal partner.

Consumed by her sorrows Margaret is drawn back to the family summer home in Sweetbarry, a small town off the coast of the North Atlantic, where she spent much of her childhood. Her lifelong best friend, Aileen, is close by. When Aileen’s adult son, Danny, is questioned by local police in connection with a violent crime that shocks the community, Margaret provides legal and moral support. And it is while doing so that an opportunity presents itself for her to confront her sorrow. She sees “a door opening. A way forward,” and she boldly reaches out with an act of courage and humility that has profound consequences.

Set against the backdrops of the rugged Atlantic coast, Toronto, and Paris, The Hour of the Fox is emotionally resonant, atmospheric, and unforgettable in its depiction of motherhood and loss.