Frederick Coburn (1871-1960) was arguably Canada's best-known painter at the peak of his career. Nick Fonda revisits Coburn's work providing charming new insight into the painter and his surroundings. His method includes casting an inquisitive gaze on other accomplished artists who have followed unusual paths as they responded to the same muse that moved Coburn a century ago, Quebec's Eastern Townships. These include Minnie Gill, Denis Palmer, Mary Martin, Stuart Main, France Jodoin, and Keven Sonmor, and more. Based on interviews with neighbours and Coburn aficionados and Nick Fonda's own thorough understanding of the milieu in which Coburn grew up, lived, and worked, Hanging Fred and a Few Others is more than a biography of an important artist. It is also a lively and fascinating reflection on the role of place-the Eastern Townships-in an artist's life. F.S. Coburn, in addition to being a painter, was an accomplished photographer. Nick Fonda, with the help of Bob Laberge, also presents 14 photos from the family collection, all taken or inspired by Frederick Coburn.

Onze récits percutants qui explorent les cicatrices invisibles laissées par les brimades, des cours d’école aux couloirs du pouvoir.

Découvrez les Cantons-de-l’Est comme vous ne les avez jamais lus : à travers 48 récits courts, Roads to Richmond tisse une mosaïque vivante de ce coin méconnu du Québec.

A 12-year old boy, son of an Italian camp cook, is shot in the back and killed near the Orford Mountain Railway construction site in rural Quebec in August 1905. The crime is all the more staggering for being the second child murder on a railway in three days. A wave of shock and terror spreads throughout the area. The police make arrests, but it becomes clear that the two suspects are not the murderers. Fast forward a century. The archivist of a local historical society comes across the diary of a teenage girl who chronicled the weeks she spent with relatives nearby in August 1905. More by accident than design, she provides clues that help the narrator investigate and solve the century-old cold case of the murder on the Orford Mountain Railway. In this historical true crime novel, Nick Fonda takes his mastery of local lore and story-telling skills to a new level. Nick Fonda is an award-winning journalist who has been documenting life in the Quebec's Eastern Townships for years. He is the author of three books of nonfiction as well as a collection of short stories. His most recent book is Richmond, Now and Then. He lives in Richmond, Quebec. His previous books include Hanging Fred and a Few Others, Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies, and Roads to Richmond. Reviews "midway between a piece of historical fiction and an account of true crime... it is an engaging step back in time, one that will leave readers enlightened and engaged about our forebears and the world they lived in." Jim Napier, Ottawa Review of Books About Nick Fonda's fiction "Nick Fonda has a great sense of compassion. (...) We are made better, as individuals, for listening to Nick Fonda's voices." Alistair MacLeod on Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies "Fonda's characters are well-drawn, coming to life on the page with intelligence and imagination." -Zoe Whittall

Some liken formal histories to four-lane highways. Nick Fonda answers with a meandering country road, quietly charming, with a human face. If all politics is local, so all history is local... and anecdotal. As the great urban thinker Jane Jacobs said, anecdotes are the only real evidence because they come from stories people tell. Though not a bastion of wealth, Richmond is rich in stories. Grand Trunk Wreck at Richmond, Aug. 13, 1904. Nine dead, 25 injured. Some end sadly. Avery Denison carved a community out of wilderness, left many descendants, but was killed by highwaymen in 1826. Young Italian immigrant Ralph Andosca was mysteriously murdered in Melbourne in 1905. Others are uplifting. Irish orphan Patrick Quinn, ordained priest in 1862, served the booming railroad town Richmond, for 50 years. Anita Mercier Demers surprised lumberjacks in 2013 when, with axe and brush saw, she earned the "Forester Emeritus" award for exemplary stewardship of her woodlot... at the age of 90 plus. Readers will inescapably yearn to visit Richmond, now and then.