Defiant Island

Robert Rayner's latest novel based in New Brunswick shows how the encroachment of age in a rural community's life exposes it to the perils of progress. White Rock Island, an isolated rural community, becomes a defiant island of souls intent on preserving itself when it is threatened by economic decisions of the provincial and federal government which tax it but threaten to withhold services that would sustain the community. When a bigger, stronger entity threatens a much smaller one, the outcome seems easy to predict. But no man is an island. For with age, nearly every community changes. But the social and institutional bonds that invigorate the social life of any community can change in an ending or a resurrection. Larger social forces that necessarily interact with the settled and simple lives of such communities, usually rural, as they attempt to survive in the face of economic forces that they do not control often decide the prospect.

A transplant from England to New Brunswick, Canada, via the island of Newfoundland, writer, musician, photographer and teacher Robert Rayner is the author of three adult novels, nine young adult novels, and four teen novels. His stories have been shortlisted in Canada for the Brimer Prize and (four times) for the Hackmatack Award. Five have been included in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre ’Best Books’ list, and one on the U.S. Young Adult Library Services Association ’Best Books to get Teens Reading’ list. He lives on the Magaguadavic River in St. George, New Brunswick.