Discover Minister Without Portfolio Envisioned By Michael Winter Published As Paper Edition

Hayward is a hardworking man reflecting, in Michael Winter's firstrate novel, many of the characteristics of modern Newfoundland he works in the offshore oilfields, relies on his buddies, loves a party and sometimes drinks too much.
But he is also aware of deeper dimensions of life and this book is an often profound and moving story of how Henry reorders his world.


The novel is also a hardedged portrait of Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan where Henry takes on military support contract work to distance himself from a failed romance.
The frustrations and dilemmas of helping

while occupying emerge vividly, These overseas struggles in turn shape Henry's direction in changing his life,

Michael Winter has written with skill and insight about the dynamics of character and family history in this book, The dialogue amongst people is lively and believable the tension around incidents is compelling there is a great deal of humour in the story's details.


At the heart of this novel is the relationship that evolves between Henry and Martha Groves, This is handled beautifully by Winter, This love, in turn, becomes the core of the "community of a hundred" that Henry comes to believe in supporting,

Overall, this is a very good book with a sharp edge in its Afghanistan sections and considerable emotional depth in its impact.

CANADA READSFINALIST

Man, what an absolute drag of a read,

Minister Without Portfolio's two parts could be easily summarized in two quick sentences, Part: Henry gets dumped, goes to Afghanistan, is traumatized, goes out West to work, but has to come back to Newfoundland, Part: Henry's got a house to build, a relationship to sort out and has to meet the b'ys from around the bay, After the quick clip of the firstpages, Minister Without Portfolio becomes a decompressed read that was an absolute slogfest for me to get through.


My issue isn't with Winter's sparse style, but rather with the excruciating pace of the novel, After beginning with an opening that moves quickly from place to place and culminates in the death of one of his friends, Henry begins a long road to recovery and personal betterment.
The plot sounded appealing and I was hoping to gain insight into the plight of labourers who have to travel away for work, but instead found an extremely dull storyline that never gripped me.
Henry's evolution by the end of the novel is believable, it's just that I was never invested in any of the characters enough to care about where they ended up.
It's also not that I couldn't see what Winter was trying to do with the novel, it just failed to provoke any personal response.


Also, full disclosure, I currently live in Newfoundland and have for some time, The brief moments of recognition of places I knew, or descriptions of the barren landscape of "The Rock" were some of the sections I found most interesting.
Now, I know dialogue is tough to nail, but I found the characters' speech in Minister Without Portfolio to sound too fake to believe.
Not that they weren't believably from Newfoundland, no, the slang and accents were well preserved, Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes when characters would speak in alternating platitudes to each other in order to sort out their lives.


I finished this book the day following its ejection from this year's Canada Reads competition, With the sheer amount of stylistic variation between all of this year's selections, it comes as no personal surprise that the most understated novel of the bunch was the first to be eliminated.
Some people may connect with the slow pace and meandering plot line of Minister Without Portfolio, but it definitely doesn't surprise me that many readers have failed to engage with the story in a meaningful way.
The characters can be tough to like, the plot doesn't really go anywhere interesting, and it was a real chore for me to get through this one.


I'm happy to have this one out of the way and move on from what I found to be an extremely weak year for Canada Reads.
Every once in a while there is a book whose story deals with a place just outside of the periphery of the reader's vision.
The narrative is so engrossing that one gets wrapped up in the story because the character is so much like us and maybe we can learn something from that person's actions.
All other items in our lives seem to become intrusions until we finish the story, Minister Without Portfolio by Michael Winter is such a book,

Chapter
She told him there wasn't another person, Henry watched her stand up from her kitchen table and push things around on a counter, She peeled up the foam placemats that made that satisfying sound, She was busying herself and of course he was in her house, he was the one who would have to physically leave, For three hours they talked it over and she told him how it was and he fled through the spectrum of emotions and they were both cleansed but she returned to what was not an ultimatum.
I'm leaving you now can you please leave,
But I love you, he said,


The story deals with Henry Hayward, He has always tried to have a normal life but when his girlfriend leaves him, he decides to join a group of buddies to work with an armyaffiliated contracting crew in Afghanistan.
Just as he begins to mend working hard, laughing and enjoying life with his friends a routine patrol turns fatal, and Henry feels he is responsible.


sitelinkLink to my complete review I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway and was overjoyed to read this latest book by Newfoundland author Michael Winter.


This is a book that personifies Newfoundland, The love of the landscape and the importance of family and friends shines through Winter's lovely prose, While working as a civilian contractor in Afghanistan, Henry Hayward is characterized by his friend as a minister without portfolio because he is not committed to anything, but has a hand in everything.
Henry proves his friend wrong as he finally finds a woman and a place worthy of commitment, I wavered on rating this book because my reaction was mixed, Probably/would be more accurate, What I liked was reading a story from contemporary Newfoundland, I have read much of historic times but nothing closer than Joey Smallwood to the present.
Michael showed a vibrant culture of people who have learned to survive in all kinds of ways some legal some not, many by working away and coming back home when they can.
Our hero is on a journey of recovery from losing a friend in Afghanistan, losing a women he loved and losing his grounding, He has a strong feeling that he'd like to make amends and learn to live another way, So his journey begins to find love and goodness,

What didn't work for me was the prose, Michael often wrote in incomplete sentences, vernacular and about people or things I couldn't quite understand in relation to the story, I read a lot and am usually not put off by different styles but this time it interfered with my enjoyment of the story.


This book has had mixed reviews, and was the first book eliminated in theCanada Reads debates, I had mixed feelings about it as I was reading it, Certainly Henry had some bad breaks in life, but he never seems to just take the bull by the horn and get on with life.
I could not get into the mood of the book, in which I guessed the author had wanted to create empathy for Henry's lot in life.
Despite the rather unsympathetic protagonist, the writing has at times a very lyrical quality, so it is a fairly pleasant read, The writer can succinctly describe the setting of the book and does not wane on and on with overly wordy descriptions, but still set the reader into the place where the story is taking place.
Henry Hayward is the minister without portfolio, All his friends seem to have a role to play soldier, father, construction foreman, Henry drifts from role to role with no portfolio and he starts to feel that he needs something of his own, The weird thing about Henry is that he doesn't develop his own thing, rather he takes ownership of what others have done or have given him.
I love this book because in the story telling Winter captures Newfoundland and the Newfoundlander ways, They have a way of being home even when they have to travel away, On the other hand, those who are from away are always from away even when they are home, In my mind, Winter captures this perfectly, This book is a Canada Reads book this year because it perfectly fits the theme of "those who are forced to make a major change in their life.
" At the same time these Newfoundland characters handle change without changing at all, Well done and well worth the read!!,