''A New Athens'', first published in 1977, is a novel by

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

author

Hugh Hood Hugh John Blagdon Hood, OC (b in Toronto, Ontario 30 Apr 1928 – d in Montreal, Quebec 1 Aug 2000) was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, essayist and university professor. Hood wrote 32 books: 17 novels including the 12-volume New Age ...

and the second in his 12-novel cycle, The New Age. It was preceded by ''

The Swing in the Garden ''The Swing in the Garden'', first published in 1975 by Oberon, is a novel by Canadian author Hugh Hood and the first in his ambitious 12-novel cycle, The New Age. It is followed by ''A New Athens''. Plot and setting This first book in the New Ag ...

''.

Setting

The book is set in southeastern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

between 1952 and 1965 in the fictional city of Stoverville, based on

Brockville Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically Independent city, independent of the county. It i ...

. Much of the story takes place in the form of reminiscences of the late 1950s and 1960s.

Story

Narrator Matt Goderich, now approaching middle age, has become an art historian. As the novel opens, he is wandering along the back roads of eastern Ontario, contemplating the flora, the history of trains in the region, and decades past. He relates his time as a young student, beginning in 1948, where he is a rare Catholic at the overwhelmingly Protestant

Victoria University in the University of Toronto Victoria University is a federated university forming part of the wider University of Toronto, and was founded in 1836. The undergraduate section of the university is Victoria College, informally ''Vic'', after the original name of the univers ...

. After a fleeting first romance he meets his future wife Edie, who disappoints her family by converting to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

to marry him. The young couple spends time in her hometown of Stoverville (a fictionalized version of

), where her parents have a boathouse on the

Saint Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...

. Her father is a well-known politician, and her mother is a brilliant but undiscovered painter. The 'new Athens' of the title is a reference to the town of

Athens, Ontario Athens ( 2016 Population 3,013) is a township in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville in Eastern Ontario, Canada. It is located approximately north of the St. Lawrence River, near Brockville, west of Addison, and about south west of Ottaw ...

Reception

Writing in the ''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...

'', Alan Dawe positively reviewed it, saying that he "can contemplate with pleasure to the prospect of reading this novel again and again."

David Helwig David Helwig (April 5, 1938 – October 16, 2018) was a Canadian editor, essayist, memoirist, novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. Life and career Helwig was born in Toronto, Ontario, where he spent his early childhood years. When h ...

of the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'' wrote that it is "humane, often charming, sometimes witty, lovingly detailed and full of a real generosity of spirit" but was "slacker in texture than its predecessor."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:New Athens 1977 Canadian novels Novels by Hugh Hood Novels set in Ontario Fiction set in 1966