A Quebec lumber town, an election, a father and son on opposite sides of it, and a marriage the son cannot admit to. Parker was Canadian-born, settled in England, sat in Parliament for eighteen years and was knighted; he knew both the timber country and the committee rooms, and the politics here are not decoration — the whole plot turns on a secret that would cost the seat. Fifty-four plates by painters including Munch and Moran follow the felling of timber, forest water and western rivers, matching the rough country of the novel's logging camps.
