Fiction

Blind Man’s Drum is a collection of stories — at times irreverent and comical, at times serious — all set in Biggar, Saskatchewan during the early 1950s.

Biggar is as much a character as the blind patriarch, Will Coutts, whose story is told through the uncanny perception of his grandson, Robert. From age six to eight, Robert watches his grandfather push his wheelbarrow through the streets of Biggar, picking up scraps and depositing them in his backyard; he watches his grandfather strip naked and perform his ritual exercises on a neighbour’s farm; he watches various relatives visit and try to make sense of their sorry lives. He articulates a broad, sweeping, irreverent prairie landscape filled with vigour, youth and humour.