A boy of good breeding : a novel /

Small-town life is a lot more eventful than one might think, especially for the mayor of Algren, the smallest town in Canada. Hosea Funk works hard to keep the population at just the right amount to maintain the town's designation. His anticipated reward is a promised visit from the prime minister as part of the Canada Day celebration. He spends his time keeping careful track of births and deaths, arrivals and departures. In his obsessive attention to his population, he risks things of real value, but does come to realize what indeed matters. Algren may be small, but love and loyalty are in good supply, as are the odd characters, including a couple of unusual single mothers--Hosea's mom, Euphemia, and Knute, whose daughter is named Summer Feelin'--who make life there unique and wonderful. Toews, author of A Complicated Kindness (2004), offers a mellow summer interlude that allows readers to revel in the not-so-simple pleasures of small-town life, and consider what matters most. --Danise Hoover Copyright 2006 Booklist

In the tradition of Lake Wobegon, Toews (A Complicated Kindness) gives us Algren, Manitoba, a town noteworthy because, with 1,500 colorful residents (give or take), it ranks as Canada's smallest town. For the town's painfully shy mayor, Hosea Funk, Algren's small population spurs both pride and constant anxiety. He tallies births, deaths and all other arrivals and departures to make sure the population hews to the magic number 1,500-less than that, and the town diminishes to a mere village, but more than that and Algren might outgrow its title. Funk's obsession isn't motivated just by bragging rights, but also by a family secret: on her deathbed, Funk's mother told him that the prime minister of Canada is his long-lost father, and that same prime minister has pledged to visit the smallest Canadian town. When single mother Knute McCloud and her kinetic young daughter return to Algren and Funk's own long-distance romance threatens to catch up with him, Funk's compulsive people-counting tests his already awkward human relationships. First published in Canada in 1998, this is a sweet, funny novel full of memorable, picaresque characters and unexpected drama. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A charming novel by Canadian author Toews (A Complicated Kindness, 2004) reveals what it's like to live in the smallest town in Canada. Hosea Funk is the mayor of Algren, Manitoba, and proud to represent Canada's smallest town, although (considering the relentless births and deaths) the population is constantly fluctuating. Canada's prime minister, John Baert, has written a letter to Hosea notifying him of an official congratulatory visit on July 1--as the son of a single teenaged mother who passed off his birth as a miraculous nighttime encounter with a man on a horse, Hosea is convinced that the prime minister is his father and plans to tell him so. Meanwhile, Algren has new residents in the form of 24-year-old single mom Knute and her three-year-old daughter, Summer Feelin', who has a curious way of flapping her arms like a bird when she's excited. The childlike mother and daughter are invited back home to stay with Knute's mother, Dory, who is at her wit's end taking care of her incommunicative husband, Tom, who's been debilitated by a stroke. While Hosea is tearing out his hair with news of the birth of Veronica Epp's triplets, he is also head-over-heels in love with Winnipeg divorce Lorna Garden, but too emotionally stilted to tell her, and she's growing restive by their long-distance romance. Also, goodhearted, clueless Hosea offers Knute a sinecure in the mayor's office, answering phones and smoking cigarettes while perched on the windowsill. Eventually, Summer Feelin's father--the incorrigible Max, son of the noisy rich alcoholic Combine Jo--comes back to town, and all is soon forgiven since nothing ever changes in this town. An earnest, sweet-tempered narrative. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.