National Bestseller
Winner of the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and shortlisted for The Giller Prize and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Childhood is renowned and critically acclaimed author André Alexis' stunning first novel. Originally published in 1998,
Childhood introduced many readers to the virtuosic talents of André Alexis, one of Canada's most cherished writers and supreme stylists.
Uniquely imagined and vividly evoked, André Alexis' prize-winning novel chronicles the childhood—or perhaps the loss of childhood—of Thomas MacMillan, who sets out to piece together the early years of his life. Raised in a Southern Ontario town in the '50s and '60s, Thomas is abandoned to the care of his eccentric Trinidadian grandmother. Then, at ten, his mother reclaims him, taking him to the once-splendid Victorian home of a gentle conjurer whose love of science and the imagination becomes an important legacy.
But is he Thomas' father? Moving and wryly humorous,
Childhood tells the story of a man's quest for what is lost, bringing him closer to the truth about himself.
Uniquely imagined and vividly evoked, André Alexis's prize-winning novel chronicles the childhood - or perhaps the loss of childhood - of Thomas MacMillan, who sets out to piece together the early years of his life. Raised in a Southern Ontario town in the '50s and '60s, Thomas is abandoned to the care of his eccentric Trinidadian grandmother. Then, at ten, his mother, Katarina, reclaims him, taking him to Ottawa and to the once-splendid Victorian home of Henry Wing, a gentle conjurer whose love of science and the imagination becomes an important legacy. But is he Thomas's father? Moving and wryly humorous, Childhood tells the story of a man's quest for what is lost, bringing him closer to the truth about himself.
“The love affair between a young black boy’s wayward mother and a man who may or may not be his father forms the intriguing background to this enormously appealing first novel…An impressive new voice.”
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Publishers Weekly“A stellar performance.”
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Globe and Mail“A most meticulous investigation of the human heart, beautifully bittersweet. André Alexis is a genuine talent.”
–Richard Bachmann, A Different Drummer Books
“Elegant and understated.”
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Los Angeles Times 
