A splinter in the heart

A Splinter in the Heart, Al Purdy's only novel, provides a vivid picture of Purdy's childhood home of Trenton, Ontario, in the final days of the First World War. On Thanksgiving Day in 1918, Trenton was devastated by a fire and explosion at a munitions factory owned by the British Chemical Company, the town's one big employer. All of the action in A Splinter in the Heart anticipates this cataclysm. As disaster looms, Purdy takes Patrick Cameron, his awkward and undistinguished teenage hero, through the usual elements of adolescence: he falls in love; he takes up long-distance running; his mother is courted by Trenton's firebrand preacher; his ancient grandfather, Marshall "Portugee" Cameron, dies.