Shadows on the Rock

By: Willa Cather

Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee

Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

"Superbly written, with that sensitivity to sunset and afterglow that has always been Miss Cather's." (The New York Times)

Willa Cather wrote Shadows on the Rock immediately after her historical masterpiece, Death Comes for the Archbishop. Like its predecessor, this novel of 17th-century Quebec is a luminous evocation of North American origins and of the men and women who struggled to adapt to that new world even as they clung to the artifacts and manners of one they left behind.

In 1697 Quebec is an island of French civilization perched on a bare gray rock amid a wilderness of trackless forests. For many of its settlers, Quebec is a place of exile, so remote that an entire winter passes without a word from home. But to 12-year-old Cécile Auclair, the rock is home, where even the formidable Governor Frontenac entertains children in his palace and beavers lie beside the lambs in a Christmas créche. As Cather follows this devout and resourceful child over the course of a year, she re-creates the continent as it must have appeared to its first European inhabitants. And she gives us a spellbinding work of historical fiction in which great events occur first as rumors and then as legends - and in which even the most intimate domestic scenes are suffused with a sense of wonder.

©2016 Willa Cather (P)2016 Random House Audio

Quintessential Willa Cather

This quintessential Willa Cather story weaves and wonderful narrative history, fictionalized, of the early years of Quebec. A very fine piece of literature and thoroughly enjoyable read.

Beautiful Quebec

Another magnificent novel by Willa Cather about the settlement of a new frontier told in the stories of it's complex characters.

History lesson!

This was such a good glimpse into the past. I loved the way the author saw it thru the eyes of the characters. I truly believe the trials they went thru moulded our country!

The reader failed...

I love Willa Cather and this book was very interesting but the reader was dreadful. Her presentation was juvenile and her pronunciation of both English and French words was awful.

wonderful

The narration of this beautiful historical novel was one of the best I have ever heard.

Great Read!

Having absolutely adored Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop," I was beyond excited to start "Shadows on the Rock." For those readers and listeners that might be in the same shoes as me, be prepared for a much different story, but told with the same artistic prose and raw human emotion as the first.

If you don't speak French, you might find this story a 4/5, as I did. For the fluent, I am sure this story is charming, heart-warming, and brings your soul to admire the sinners and saints of yore, and how much we had in common with them, even if fictional characters.

Wonderfully descriptive

The descriptions were so clear I could imagine I was there. I enjoyed the narrator’s inflection and easy to follow tone.

Fabulous reading on trip to Quebec City

Engaging story with interesting historical base. Liked the narrator. Holds up well overall. Appreciation of herbal and other skills and traditions of native peoples, but some problematic dated derogatory references.

An Unforgettable Journey!

Another unforgettable Cather tale of Old World Europeans struggling to create an outpost of “civilization” in the New World—in this case the early French colonists who settle on an outcrop (the “Rock”) on the St Lawrence River that will one day become Quebec City. No writer so breathtakingly captures the power & presence of geography & seasons. Long months of wintry isolation, ecstatic springtimes when ships last seen in October return bearing long-awaited news, gifts, & seafarers’ lore. The characters are charming, sympathetic & quirky. There are saints & shoemakers & apothecaries, battling bishops & sea captains with parrots. The prose is painterly & gorgeous & the narrator is wonderful, mesmerizing in both English & French!🥰

Simple Pleasure

In this crazy world, it was such a pleasure to hear a simple story told in a quiet way. I am going to Quebec City in a couple of months, so this with also a delightful way to acquaint myself with the history of the area.