Overview

Alistair Parker becomes a journalist, reporting from dangerous locations around the world. He experiences adventure, love, and loss, but one story continuously eludes him-his own. In the end, will Alistair bury the lead, or will he manage to draw from his rich and diverse experiences to bring a sense of purpose and closure to his own life? This novel is about commitment-a man torn between love and his perception of his professional duty. In their graduating year of high school, Alistair and Virginia Parker fall in love, but their relationship does not run smoothly. Ginny, with her interest in child psychology, is intent on marriage and having a family, while Alistair's focus is on a career in journalism and eventually becoming a foreign correspondent. Alistair's career takes him around the world, reporting on major crises in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa-from the war in Vietnam to the environmental crisis. The issues he deals with are global and persistent in nature, including racial discrimination, political repression, poverty, famine, economic disparity, global warming, and the impact of pandemics. Throughout, Alistair struggles with his conscience due to his inability to make sacrifices that would affect his safety, comfortable lifestyle, and economic well-being, even though he recognizes some others do and that they are necessary to deal effectively with these challenges. Simultaneously, he confronts obstacles in his relationships with those he loves and whose behavior he admires but cannot himself emulate. Roads Not Taken spans the lifetimes of its principal characters, with unexpected plot twists and turns, as well as revealing and entertaining personality insights. It is a novel for our uncertain era when we face intractable issues that must be resolved for the world we know to be sustained.

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9781938462719

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Reviews

""Via the literary time machine, Terry Keenleyside crafts in Roads Not Taken, we are delivered to the harrowing centres of major 20th century war zones. These historic scenes and the media machine documenting them are vivid, palpable, and riveting. A parallel journey parachutes the reader deep down into the tender, sensitive, psyche of the characters while they grow, study, love and work in this time period not so long ago, but far enough to fascinate as to what has changed and has not changed. Keenleyside paints this world so realistically: dreamlike, film-like, fas, t and brilliant."" -David Tierney, Publisher, Borealis Press, Ottawa, Ontario ""This is a dramatic story that includes a turbulent account of one man's love affairs and two journalists' lives covering major international crises around the world. On assignment, they are frequently at risk of being wounded or killed, and, as a result, the two are at odds with each other over whether or not the risks are worth taking. -John Flood, Publisher, Penumbra Press, Ontario, Canada

Author Information

Terry Keenleyside is a former journalist, diplomat, and university professor who has written six books and numerous academic articles on Canadian foreign policy, human rights, and media coverage of international affairs.His first novel, The Common Touch, published by Doubleday, was short-listed for the award for the best first novel by a Canadian in 1977, and the second, In a Spin, was nominated for the Governor General's Award for English Canadian fiction in 2016. Two of his three literary travel books, Missing The Bus, Making The Connection, Tales and Tastes of Travel, and Roaming The Big Land, Flavours of Canada, were winners of Gourmand World Cookbook awards for culinary travel in 2008 and 2010 respectively.Keenleyside lives in Toronto but remains professor emeritus at the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario.A detailed biography, synopses of his books, and reviews are available on his website: www.takeenleyside.com

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