8 Nino Ricci
Life was different a quarter century ago. A desktop computer could do
only a fraction of what can be done on today’s handheld devices. The
compact disc, itself now practically obsolete, was ousting vinyl records.
HIV/AIDS was becoming an epidemic, Afghanistan was the Soviet Union’s
problem, and the language police were on patrol in Quebec. The context for
Nino Ricci’s Governor General’s Award-winning, darkly comic novel, The
Origin of Species (Doubleday Canada), is mid-1980s Montreal. The
central character, the son of Italian immigrants, is an intelligent but
directionless slacker with an unwavering ability to make bad decisions.
His struggles to make sense of his life include an ill-fated trip to the
Galapagos Islands.
Nino Ricci is also the author of the Trillium Award-winner Testament,
a fictional biography of Jesus, and a trilogy of novels consisting of The
Lives of Saints (Governor General’s Award), In a Glass House,
and Where She Has Gone. He recently contributed Pierre Elliott
Trudeau to John Ralston Saul’s Extraordinary Canadians
series.
Photo: Rafy
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