David Adams Richards, Lives of Short Duration

David Barrick (University of Western Ontario)

Ed. by Karis Shearer, University of British Columbia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1981

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Lives of Short Duration

(1981) is the final book in David Adams Richards’s first trilogy of novels about a fictionalized community living along New Brunswick’s Miramichi river. Set during the late spring of 1980, this ambitious work uses a fragmented timeline to describe several generations of the Terri family, whose deterioration exemplifies the larger cultural and economic decay that has afflicted their community. Many of the primary characters have accepted, or succumbed to, the glamour of American materialism and pop culture at the expense of their Maritime identity and heritage. While they sense that something is gravely wrong in their lives, they continue to fill their spiritual void with alcohol, casual sex, and cheap consumer products which “make life, if not bearable, at…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2055 words

Citation: Barrick, David. "Lives of Short Duration". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 May 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30428, accessed 21 November 2024.]

David Adams Richards, Lives of Short Duration

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback