The story of an immigrant family trying to build a life in an unforgiving new world, Under This Unbroken Sky is a mesmerizing and absorbing first novel of love and greed, pride and desperation. Award-winning writer Shandi Mitchell based this evocative and compelling narrative of struggle and survival on the Canadian prairie on her own family history.
Shandi Mitchell is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. She spent her childhood on a military base on the prairies and now makes her home in Nova Scotia with her husband, Alan, and their dog, Annie. Under This Unbroken Sky is her first novel.
Hometown:
Wellington, Nova Scotia, Canada
Date of Birth:
February 6, 1964
Place of Birth:
Chatham, New Brunswick, Canada
Education:
B.A. in English, Dalhousie University, 1986
Read an Excerpt
There is a black-and-white photograph of a family: a man, woman, and five children. Scrawled on the back, in tight archaic script, are the words Willow Creek, Alberta, 1933. This will be their only photograph together.
They are posed in front of a hand-hewn log granary. The adults are seated on wooden chairs, centered to frame. They are dressed in their church best.
The man, his hair clipped short, wears a white, high-collared, pressed shirt, tightly knotted tie, a dark woolen suit, and broken-in work boots. He looks like a tall man. Large hands rest on his knees. His legs are crossed.
The woman wears a dark, modest knee-length dress and low-heeled shoes with sturdy ankle straps. No stockings. On her lap is a baby, a white blur squirming to escape the woman's strong hold. He is round and fat, in stark contrast to the other thin forms.
Three sisters ordered in ascending age are interspersed between their parents. On the far end stands the eldest boy. He is ramrod-straight. Chin up. Though they all wear summer clothes, they are standing in four inches of snow.
They stare straight ahead, their eyes lost in shadows. Expressionless. Arms rigidly pressed against their sides. Holding their breath as the photographer counts: one hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three . . .
Within three years, this farm will be foreclosed. Two years later, one will die. Two others, of whom there is no photograph, will be murdered.
But this day, in the moment right after the shutter clicks shut, this family takes a deep breath and smiles.
“Unforgettable. . . . Mitchell’s extraordinary rendering of human suffering is matched by her ability to give powerful imaginative shape to the will to survive, to care for others, and to forgive the most brutal of trespasses.”
Steven Galloway
“A magnificent novel. . . . A powerhouse of a debut that grips from start to finish.”
