Joey Smallwood

Joey Smallwood

Known as the "only living Father of Confederation" in his lifetime, Joey Smallwood was an entertaining, crafty, and controversial politician in Canada for decades. Born in Gambo, Newfoundland, Joseph ("Joey") Smallwood (1900–1991) spent his life championing the worth and potential of his native province. Although he was a successful journalist and radio personality, Smallwood is best known for his role in bringing Newfoundland into Confederation with Canada in 1949, believing that such an action would secure an average standard of living for Newfoundlanders. He was rightfully dubbed the "only living Father of Confederation" in his lifetime and was premier of the province for twenty-three years. During much of the last part of the twentieth century, Smallwood remained a prominent player in the story of Newfoundland and Labrador’s growth as a province. Later in life he put himself in debt in order to complete his Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, the only project of its kind in Canada up to that point. In Joey Smallwood: Schemer and Dreamer, Ray Argyle reexamines the life of this incredible figure in light of Newfoundland’s progress in recent years, and measures his vision against its new position as a province of prosperity rather than poverty.

I Chose Canada

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

A mystery and a love story spanning five decades, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an epic portrait of passion and ambition, set against the beautiful, brutal landscape of Newfoundland. In this widely acclaimed novel, Johnston has created two of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: Joey Smallwood, who claws his way up from poverty to become New Foundland's first premier; and Sheilagh Fielding, who renounces her father's wealth to become a popular columnist and writer, a gifted satirist who casts a haunting shadow on Smallwood's life and career. The two meet as children at school and grow to realize that their lives are irreversibly intertwined, bound together by a secret they don't know they share. Smallwood, always on the make, torn between love of country and fear of failure, is as reluctant to trust the private truths of his heart as his rival and savior, Fielding--brilliant, hard-drinking, and unconventionally sexy. Their story ranges from small-town Newfoundland to New York City, from the harrowing ice floes of the seal hunt to the lavish drawing rooms of colonial governors, and combines erudition, comedy, and unflagging narrative brio in a manner reminiscent of John Irving and Charles Dickens. A tragicomic elegy for the "colony of unrequited dreams" that is Newfoundland, Wayne Johnston's masterful tribute to a people and a place establishes him as a novelist who is as profound as he is funny, with an impeccable sense of the intersection where private lives and history collide.