Jane Urquhart

The Underpainter is a novel by Jane Urquhart that won the 1997 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, and in the same year was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. The story takes place mainly in Canada and the United States in the early years of the 20th century. The main character …

In 1867 a good-natured Bavarian priest, is sent by God and mad King Ludwig to the wilds of North America. Soon the backwoods are transformed into a parish and the settlers into a congregation, and Joseph Becker, a woodcarver, meets his future wife. Several decades later, Joseph Becker teaches his astounding carving …

With stunning virtuosity, the stories in Jane Urquhart’s dazzling first book of fiction unearth universal truths as they reach across countries and eras. A woman runs away to a cottage in the English moors to escape a love affair; shards of glass reconcile a middle-aged wife to her husband’s estrangement; a …