Smuggling Donkeys
by David Helwig
Warren Thouless, recently retired teacher, long-retired actor, aspiring thinker, stuffed up in a small basement room that fell into disorder: that's how the narrator of "Smuggling Donkeys" sees himself. His wife has left him, gone off to someplace in India on a spiritual quest; now and then she sends a postcard. Impelled by some mixture of desolation and high spirits, Warren has let Tessa Niles, a talented and beautiful former student, talk him into buying a deconsecrated church to turn it into a theatre, and he struggles to survive a winter of solitude in the empty building, delivering a comic monologue to an audience of one.
Gradually his life takes a new course. With Tessa's assistance he begins to revive his career as an actor. His life becomes its own kind of spiritual quest. Shakespeare and Chekhov and Thornton Wilder provide words for him to speak. The gods (in all their strange variety) hover. He ends his story on the brink of astonishing possibilities.
FictionLiteraryFamily LifeMarriage & Divorce
RELEASED2007
PUBLISHERThe Porcupine's Quill
LENGTH87
LANGUAGEEN
David Helwig, CM, a Canadian editor, essayist, memoirist, novelist, poet, short story writer and translator, was born and spent his early childhood years in Toronto, Ontario. When he was ten years old, his family moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake, where his father ran an antiques business. He received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto in 1960 and two years later, a Masters degree from the University of Liverpool. After graduating, he returned to Canada to teach at Queen's University in Kingston. His first book, a collection of poems called <i>Figures in a Landscape</i>, was published in 1968 with Oberon Press. In 1992 he moved to Montreal, then after four years there, to Belfast, Prince Edward Island. In 2007, he received the Matt Cohen Award from the Writers' Trust of Canada in honour of his lifetime contribution to Canadian literature. He was appointed Prince Edward Island's third Poet Laureate in 2008 and on July 1, 2009 was named a Member of the Order of Canada. Helwig published nearly fifty books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction over the course of his five-decade career. He died on October 16, 2018, at the age of 80 in Montague, Prince Edward Island.
Smuggling Donkeys
by David Helwig
Warren Thouless, recently retired teacher, long-retired actor, aspiring thinker, stuffed up in a small basement room that fell into disorder: that's how the narrator of "Smuggling Donkeys" sees himself. His wife has left him, gone off to someplace in India on a spiritual quest; now and then she sends a postcard. Impelled by some mixture of desolation and high spirits, Warren has let Tessa Niles, a talented and beautiful former student, talk him into buying a deconsecrated church to turn it into a theatre, and he struggles to survive a winter of solitude in the empty building, delivering a comic monologue to an audience of one.
Gradually his life takes a new course. With Tessa's assistance he begins to revive his career as an actor. His life becomes its own kind of spiritual quest. Shakespeare and Chekhov and Thornton Wilder provide words for him to speak. The gods (in all their strange variety) hover. He ends his story on the brink of astonishing possibilities.
FictionLiteraryFamily LifeMarriage & Divorce
RELEASED2007
PUBLISHERThe Porcupine's Quill
LENGTH87
LANGUAGEEN
David Helwig, CM, a Canadian editor, essayist, memoirist, novelist, poet, short story writer and translator, was born and spent his early childhood years in Toronto, Ontario. When he was ten years old, his family moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake, where his father ran an antiques business. He received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto in 1960 and two years later, a Masters degree from the University of Liverpool. After graduating, he returned to Canada to teach at Queen's University in Kingston. His first book, a collection of poems called <i>Figures in a Landscape</i>, was published in 1968 with Oberon Press. In 1992 he moved to Montreal, then after four years there, to Belfast, Prince Edward Island. In 2007, he received the Matt Cohen Award from the Writers' Trust of Canada in honour of his lifetime contribution to Canadian literature. He was appointed Prince Edward Island's third Poet Laureate in 2008 and on July 1, 2009 was named a Member of the Order of Canada. Helwig published nearly fifty books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction over the course of his five-decade career. He died on October 16, 2018, at the age of 80 in Montague, Prince Edward Island.
