Finding Edward, the debut novel from Canadian author Sheila Murray, will be published on July 19 by independent Toronto-based publisher Cormorant Books.
Jamaican-born Cyril arrives in the city in 2012 after his mother and adoptive grandfather have died. While coming to terms with their deaths, he studies at a university, working two jobs to make ends meet.
Cyril finds a trove of letters and photographs from a White woman who gave up her mixed-race baby, Edward, in the 1920s. Cyril becomes determined to track down Edward, who he believes might still be alive.
Murray, a native of England who moved to Toronto as a teenager, wrote part of the book in Jamaica, where she was vacationing with family. The novel was informed by her social-justice advocacy and her academic background in immigrant and settlement studies.
“Finding Edward is, in part, an exploration of what it means to be biracial in an alien culture,” Murray told Kirkus. “The book’s central character, Cyril, is a young, Jamaican, mixed-race man, newly arrived in Toronto. In his determination to discover what happened to Edward, his research (and mine) revealed the remarkable achievements of Blacks in Canada over centuries—histories buried beneath the mainstream narratives that frame our understanding of Canada. Fully grasping the implications of those hidden histories has been a very welcome revelation for me.”
Finding Edward is available for preorder now.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
