Charlotte Gray Returns to Belleville

Posted: Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Category: General, Local Events, 

A small crowd gathered on the third floor of the Belleville Library on November 8th to see the renowned historian, Charlotte Gray. Gray is an acclaimed writer of non-fiction and of Canadian history no less. Canadian history is usually not a topic that makes even Canadians salivate in the palate.

But Gray has been accredited with helping “bring Canadian history to life”. With the skillful prose of a careful and meticulous researcher she wowed unexpected audiences with poignant narratives of such Canadian figures as Susan Moodie, Alexander Graham Bell and Pauline Johnson. Her book Sisters in the Wilderness remains a sort of classic among the Canadian history shelves. Since Susanna Moodie lived a part of her life in Belleville, where Charlotte spent time researching, it was a full-circle moment to see her return so many years after to promote her latest book, The Massey Murder.

Without giving the plot away, let us just say that The Massey Murder combines murder mystery with Canadian history. It is through this uncommon combination of genres that Gray has managed, once again, to make Canadian history interesting. Bloody interesting.

As she mentioned during her lecture, Gray worryingly observed the shrinking size of the history section in book stores. This is the section she bases her livelihood and career on. But an idea struck when she saw the skyrocketing popularity of non-fiction crime and murder. She immediately asked some of her colleagues if they knew of any interesting Canadian murders. The rest is, as they say, history....err Canadian history. But don't worry, if Charlotte Gray is writing it, you can be sure you'll be entertained rather than put to sleep by the history lesson.



Share this:





MEMBER LOGIN


BLOG ARCHIVE



UPCOMING EVENTS


See all events

LATEST NEWS


See all news

Subscribe for news and events