A Stone for Andrew Dunphy
Award-winning interviewer Ronald Caplan has finally
written his own book— a personal account of his search for song and obituary
poetry and the tools for community survival in northern Cape Breton. Caplan shares
his journey through northern Cape Breton as he learned about the in-home
singing tradition and the community’s extraordinary devotion to the poet Andrew
Dunphy—a person who might in other places have been an outcast. Dunphy roamed
northern Cape Breton, sharing the news, nursing the sick, often caring for
small children. He was loved everywhere. And he wrote magnificent poems that,
with great respect, his neighbours turned into popular song. One hundred
years later, with obvious affection,. Told in the words of those who knew Andrew Dunphy, including singer
Helen Curtis, esteemed fiddler Winston “Scotty” Fitzgerald, historian and
storyteller Bob Fitzgerald. and Dunphy’s close friend George Rambeau—in A Stone
for Andrew Dunphy Caplan tells of the robust life that flourished in the Aspy Bay region
as the 20th century dawned.
C$17.95