Nights Below Station Street
AuthorDavid Adams Richards
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
SeriesMiramichi Trilogy
GenreNovel
PublisherMcClelland and Stewart
Publication date
May 1988
Media typeHardback, Paperback
Preceded byRoad to the Stilt House 
Followed byEvening Snow Will Bring Such Peace 

Nights Below Station Street is a novel by David Adams Richards, published in 1988.[1] It was the first volume in his Miramichi trilogy, which also included the novels Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace (1990) and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1993).[2]

The novel centres on the Walshes, a rural New Brunswick family in the 1970s.[1] Patriarch Joe has been only irregularly employed since injuring his back at work several years earlier, his wife Rita is concerned about his resulting struggles with alcoholism and depression while herself struggling to cope with being the family's sole breadwinner, and teenage daughter Adele is bitterly unhappy with the family's circumstances and resentful of her father's inability to hold steady work.[1]

The novel won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 1988 Governor General's Awards.[3]

The novel was adapted by Credo Entertainment as a television film,[4] which aired on CBC Television in 1998.[5] The cast included Liisa Repo-Martell as Adele Walsh, Lynda Boyd as Rita, Michael Hogan as Joe, and Brent Stait as Vye.[4] It was also adapted for the stage by Caleb Marshall in 2006.[6]

Richards directly pokes fun at himself in his 2016 novel Principles to Live By, in which several characters dismiss Nights Below Station Street as a "dirty, ignorant novel" that "nobody in their right mind would want to read".[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Searing fidelity about grim losers". The Globe and Mail, May 14, 1988.
  2. ^ "David Adams Richards". The Canadian Encyclopedia, April 10, 2008.
  3. ^ "New Brunswick writer wins national race for top literary prize". The Globe and Mail, March 4, 1989.
  4. ^ a b "On the set of Nights Below Station Street". Playback, April 7, 1997.
  5. ^ "Despite misery, drama moving; Nights Below Station Street boasts fine acting and writing". Edmonton Journal, January 25, 1998.
  6. ^ "Giving our stories a starring role; Arts Theatre New Brunswick's artistic producer wants to reconnect province with its history and 'The Bricklin' fits the bill". Telegraph-Journal, July 24, 2010.
  7. ^ "David Adams Richards offers Principles to Live By, namely, have some ‘common decency’". National Post, May 18, 2016.
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