David Adams Richards
Biography
David Adams Richards was born October 17, 1950, in Newcastle (now Miramichi) New Brunswick. After graduating from Harkins High School in 1969, Richards joined the Ice House Gang. Members included Alden Nowlan, Fred Cogswell, Bill and Nancy Bauer, Kent Thompson, and Robert Gibbs. The group helped Richards cultivate his notorious voice.
In 1972, Richards published Small Heroics, a collection of poetry from his first year at St. Thomas University. The next year, he won the Norma Epstein Prize for Creative Writing for the first few chapters of The Coming of Winter. Three credits shy of his degree, Richards dropped out of St. Thomas University to write full time. The Coming of Winter was published in 1974 and established Richards’s signature setting of the Miramichi.
Richards’s novel, Nights Below Station Street, which is also set in the Miramichi, won the 1988 Governor General’s Award for fiction. In 1998, Richards won the Governor General’s Award for non-fiction for his memoir Lines on the Water: A Fisherman’s Life on the Miramichi. At the time, Richards was one of only three writers to ever win in both the fiction and nonfiction categories. In 2000, Richards won the Giller Prize for Mercy Among the Children.
Richards is a member of both the Order of New Brunswick and the Order of Canada. He was appointed to the Canadian Senate by Justin Trudeau in August 2017. His latest publication is Wild Green Light, a book of poetry written in collaboration with Margo Wheaton.
In 1972, Richards published Small Heroics, a collection of poetry from his first year at St. Thomas University. The next year, he won the Norma Epstein Prize for Creative Writing for the first few chapters of The Coming of Winter. Three credits shy of his degree, Richards dropped out of St. Thomas University to write full time. The Coming of Winter was published in 1974 and established Richards’s signature setting of the Miramichi.
Richards’s novel, Nights Below Station Street, which is also set in the Miramichi, won the 1988 Governor General’s Award for fiction. In 1998, Richards won the Governor General’s Award for non-fiction for his memoir Lines on the Water: A Fisherman’s Life on the Miramichi. At the time, Richards was one of only three writers to ever win in both the fiction and nonfiction categories. In 2000, Richards won the Giller Prize for Mercy Among the Children.
Richards is a member of both the Order of New Brunswick and the Order of Canada. He was appointed to the Canadian Senate by Justin Trudeau in August 2017. His latest publication is Wild Green Light, a book of poetry written in collaboration with Margo Wheaton.
Additional Informational:
I have come out on a grey afternoon
To be at the circus with my son.
The man behind me with his wife and
Children laughs, as if a joke was so
Well crafted he’s undone, and grabs not once
But twice, my shoulder as he grins.
So then he laughs every time the elephant
Breaks wind.
Or when the clown begins his task
Of wrestling with the ostrich,
He points his finger and chews
Popcorn, blows bubbles with his gum.
He is radiant in what I cannot see, that
Has become
Hilarious to him.
All these poor animals trying
To act gracious
Their eyes, again and again
Showing the universal
Symptom of mortification, remorse and pain
Not only for themselves but
For their harried trainers.
Finally it is over, all that unseen shame
And they have shone the spotlight
On the nineteen-year-old Armenian girl with
The peculiar Armenian name;
She’s ninety feet up
Without a net, swinging free of the
Pin bar that keeps her from her death
All of this—all of this
In order to make a dollar.
And even though through the torn tent
Comes dismal blowing snow and rain
A smile never leaves her—for she takes it
As her duty.
And the man with his wife
And children,
No longer points or giggles
But finally understands enough, to shut
The fuck-up.
Published in Murder, and Other Essays (Doubleday Canada, 2019).
Used with permission from the author.
To be at the circus with my son.
The man behind me with his wife and
Children laughs, as if a joke was so
Well crafted he’s undone, and grabs not once
But twice, my shoulder as he grins.
So then he laughs every time the elephant
Breaks wind.
Or when the clown begins his task
Of wrestling with the ostrich,
He points his finger and chews
Popcorn, blows bubbles with his gum.
He is radiant in what I cannot see, that
Has become
Hilarious to him.
All these poor animals trying
To act gracious
Their eyes, again and again
Showing the universal
Symptom of mortification, remorse and pain
Not only for themselves but
For their harried trainers.
Finally it is over, all that unseen shame
And they have shone the spotlight
On the nineteen-year-old Armenian girl with
The peculiar Armenian name;
She’s ninety feet up
Without a net, swinging free of the
Pin bar that keeps her from her death
All of this—all of this
In order to make a dollar.
And even though through the torn tent
Comes dismal blowing snow and rain
A smile never leaves her—for she takes it
As her duty.
And the man with his wife
And children,
No longer points or giggles
But finally understands enough, to shut
The fuck-up.
Published in Murder, and Other Essays (Doubleday Canada, 2019).
Used with permission from the author.
Critical Analysis: "Learning Tragedy: David Adams Richards on Economic Divides
Jacob Moore (ENGL 3103: Advanced Poetry Workshop) and Renelle Dion (ACPA Managing Editor, 2022)
In David Adams Richards’s “Circus”, Richards compares himself to another man who brought his family to the circus. Unlike the man, Richards understands the tragedy of the people and animals in the circus act, who endanger their lives for the entertainment of people like the man and his family. Richards begins:
I have come out on a grey afternoon
To be at the circus with my son.
The man behind me with his wife and
Children laughs (1-4).
At the end of the first stanza, Richard says, “He is radiant in what I cannot, that / Has become / Hilarious to him” (13-15). Both Richards and the man are present with family, but Richards “cannot see” what amuses the man, thus separating the two. In the next stanza, Richards explains what he sees:
All these poor animals trying
To act gracious
Their eyes, again and again
Showing the universal
Symptom of mortification, remorse and pain (16-20).
While the man laughs, Richards focuses on the suffering animals. “[T]he universal / Symptom of mortification” in the eyes of the animals personifies them. The key word “universal” implies that humans and animals feel the same pain, giving them a sense of dignity. They feel human-like pain, so their captivity and likely abuse is that much harder to accept for spectators. Additionally, the animals feel “remorse and pain / Not only for themselves but / For their harried trainers” (20-22). “Harried” highlights the repeated demands of the circus on the performers. He builds on this when he describes the nineteen-year-old Armenian acrobat girl:
She’s ninety feet up
Without a net, swinging free of the
Pin bar that keeps her from her death
All of this—all of this
In order to make a dollar. (27-31)
The girl risks her life for money. Richards’s repetition of “all of this” enforces his point that the performance is not for the audience’s enjoyment. The performance is for profit. The circus does not use the Armenian girl to show off her talent, or to give her a platform. They simply use her impressive abilities to make money off of consumers.
In the final stanza,
And the man with his wife
And children,
No longer points or giggles
But finally understands enough, to shut
The fuck-up. (36-40)
While Richards recognizes the atrocity at play before him immediately, the other man takes a little longer to come to this realization. As the man begins to see the Armenian girl for what she is - a woman risking her life for the profit of others - he is invited to reflect on why this is happening. He paid to see this Armenian girl possibly get hurt or die, in the end. From the beginning, Richards is aware of the pain inflicted for the profit of the circus. The final lines of the piece are aggressive, startling compared to the more passive language found throughout the rest of the piece. This change in tone indicates the man’s own startling realization and highlights his newfound silence. The man now “understands enough” to stop laughing at this horrible scene before him, and to just be quiet.
Ideally the man, like Richards, would think about the role he plays in the harm of the Armenian girl, the animals, and all others involved in the suffering. In a nutshell, Richards invites us to reflect on the disparity of the social classes at play in “Circus”. The performers and animals are the working class, forced to take high risks in order to survive. The similarity between the performers and the circus animals implies a special kind of lowliness in social status for the performers. On the other hand, the spectators can afford to pay to be there, placing them in a higher class. This places the man and his family, along with Richards and his family, as a class more similar to that of the circus organizers. This class association comes with a level of guilt, as the man realizes he is exploiting others for entertainment as well, making him a part of the problem.
Richards invites people to question the decisions we make as consumers, and to reflect on the wider, social consequences of our actions. “Circus” presents an awareness of the growing disparity between the low- and high-class population, and introduces an opening for discussion and solutions to this widespread social issue.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Richards, David Adams. "Circus." Murder, and Other Essays, Double Day Canada, 2019, pp. 116-117.
In David Adams Richards’s “Circus”, Richards compares himself to another man who brought his family to the circus. Unlike the man, Richards understands the tragedy of the people and animals in the circus act, who endanger their lives for the entertainment of people like the man and his family. Richards begins:
I have come out on a grey afternoon
To be at the circus with my son.
The man behind me with his wife and
Children laughs (1-4).
At the end of the first stanza, Richard says, “He is radiant in what I cannot, that / Has become / Hilarious to him” (13-15). Both Richards and the man are present with family, but Richards “cannot see” what amuses the man, thus separating the two. In the next stanza, Richards explains what he sees:
All these poor animals trying
To act gracious
Their eyes, again and again
Showing the universal
Symptom of mortification, remorse and pain (16-20).
While the man laughs, Richards focuses on the suffering animals. “[T]he universal / Symptom of mortification” in the eyes of the animals personifies them. The key word “universal” implies that humans and animals feel the same pain, giving them a sense of dignity. They feel human-like pain, so their captivity and likely abuse is that much harder to accept for spectators. Additionally, the animals feel “remorse and pain / Not only for themselves but / For their harried trainers” (20-22). “Harried” highlights the repeated demands of the circus on the performers. He builds on this when he describes the nineteen-year-old Armenian acrobat girl:
She’s ninety feet up
Without a net, swinging free of the
Pin bar that keeps her from her death
All of this—all of this
In order to make a dollar. (27-31)
The girl risks her life for money. Richards’s repetition of “all of this” enforces his point that the performance is not for the audience’s enjoyment. The performance is for profit. The circus does not use the Armenian girl to show off her talent, or to give her a platform. They simply use her impressive abilities to make money off of consumers.
In the final stanza,
And the man with his wife
And children,
No longer points or giggles
But finally understands enough, to shut
The fuck-up. (36-40)
While Richards recognizes the atrocity at play before him immediately, the other man takes a little longer to come to this realization. As the man begins to see the Armenian girl for what she is - a woman risking her life for the profit of others - he is invited to reflect on why this is happening. He paid to see this Armenian girl possibly get hurt or die, in the end. From the beginning, Richards is aware of the pain inflicted for the profit of the circus. The final lines of the piece are aggressive, startling compared to the more passive language found throughout the rest of the piece. This change in tone indicates the man’s own startling realization and highlights his newfound silence. The man now “understands enough” to stop laughing at this horrible scene before him, and to just be quiet.
Ideally the man, like Richards, would think about the role he plays in the harm of the Armenian girl, the animals, and all others involved in the suffering. In a nutshell, Richards invites us to reflect on the disparity of the social classes at play in “Circus”. The performers and animals are the working class, forced to take high risks in order to survive. The similarity between the performers and the circus animals implies a special kind of lowliness in social status for the performers. On the other hand, the spectators can afford to pay to be there, placing them in a higher class. This places the man and his family, along with Richards and his family, as a class more similar to that of the circus organizers. This class association comes with a level of guilt, as the man realizes he is exploiting others for entertainment as well, making him a part of the problem.
Richards invites people to question the decisions we make as consumers, and to reflect on the wider, social consequences of our actions. “Circus” presents an awareness of the growing disparity between the low- and high-class population, and introduces an opening for discussion and solutions to this widespread social issue.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Richards, David Adams. "Circus." Murder, and Other Essays, Double Day Canada, 2019, pp. 116-117.
Bilbliography
Primary Sources: Books
Richards, David Adams. The Bay of Love and Sorrows. McClelland and Stewart, 1998.
---. Blood Ties. Oberon Press, 1976.
---. The Christmas Tree: Two Tales for the Holidays. Viking Press, 2006.
---. The Coming of Winter. Oberon Press, 1974.
---. Dancers at Night. Oberon Press, 1978.
---. Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace. McClelland and Stewart, 1990.
---. Facing the Hunter: Reflections on a Misunderstood Pursuit. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2011.
---. For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down. McClelland and Stewart, 1993.
---. The Friends of Meager Fortune. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2006.
---. God Is: My Search for Faith in a Secular World. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2009.
---. Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1996.
---. Hope in the Desperate Hour. McClelland and Stewart, 1996.
---. Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2011.
---. A Lad from Brantford & Other Essays. Fredericton: Broken Jaw Press, 1994.
---. Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1998.
---. Lives of Short Duration. Oberon Press, 1981.
---. Lord Beaverbrook. Penguin Canada, 2008.
---. The Lost Highway. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2007.
---. Mercy Among the Children. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2000.
---. Murder, and Other Essays. Doubleday Canada, 2019.
---. Nights Below Station Street. McClelland and Stewart, 1988.
---. One Step Inside. Chatham, NB: David Adams Richards, 1970.
---. Playing the Inside Out. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2008.
---. River of the Brokenhearted. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2003.
---. Road to the Stilt House. Oberon Press, 1985.
---. Small Heroics. The New Brunswick Chapbooks, 1972.
Richards, David Adams, and Margo Wheaton. Wild Green Light. Pottersfield Press, 2021.
Primary Sources: Other Writing
Richards, David Adams. “Canada’s Literary Community Gets Religion All Wrong.” The Globe & Mail [Toronto, ON] 14 Aug. 2009. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/canadas-literary-community-gets-religion-all-wrong/article4282314
---. "Drinking." Addicted: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane, Greystone Books, 2001. pp. 107-21.
Secondary Sources
Armstrong, Christopher, and Herb Wyile. “Firing the Regional Can(n)on: Liberal Pluralism, Social Agency, and David Adams Richards’s Miramichi Trilogy.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne, vol. 22, no. 1, 1997, pp. 1-18.
Bemrose, John. “Harmed and Dangerous.” Rev. of For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down by David Adams Richards. Maclean’s, 23 August 1993, p. 47.
Butler Hallett, David F., and Jules Lewis. “David Adams Richards.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2017. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/david-adams-richards
Byrne, George. “The Blood Hardened and the Blood Running: The Character of Orville in Blood Ties.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne, vol. 7, no. 1, 1982, pp. 55-62.
The Canadian Press. “Trudeau appoints acclaimed writer David Adams Richards to Senate.” Toronto Star, 30 Aug 2017, www.toronto.com/things-to-do/trudeau-appoints-acclaimed-writer-to-senate/article_c10f0e8b-4d22-51cb-af6b-1ea2cefc48b8.html
CBC Books. “Wild Green Light.” CBC, 20 April 2021,
www.cbc.ca/books/wild-green-light-1.5994827
Connor, William. “Coming of Winter, Coming of Age: The Autumnal Vision of David Adams Richards' First Novel.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne, vol. 9, no. 1, 1984, pp. 31-40.
---. “The River in the Blood: Escape and Entrapment in the Fiction of David Adams Richards.” World Literature Written in English, vol. 26, no. 2, 1986, pp. 269-77.
Cormier, Audrey M. Regionalism in the Fiction of Alistair MacLeod, Alden Nowlan and David Adams Richards. 2000. University of New Brunswick, MA Thesis.
Currie, Sheldon. “David Adams Richards: The People on the Roadway.” The Antigonish Review, vol. 99, 1994, pp. 67-75.
Doucet, Robbie. Trajectory of David Adams Richards’ Fiction. 1999. University of New Brunswick, BA Honours Thesis.
Falconer, Tim. “Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play.” Rev. of Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn’t Play. Quill and Quire, 1996. www.quillandquire.com/review/hockey-dreams-memories-of-a-man-who-couldn-t-play/
Fullerton, Anne. Deconstructing the Ivory Tower: David Adams Richards’ Re-Visioning of Intelligence in Mercy Among the Children and Friends of Meagre Fortune. 2011. University of New Brunswick, BA Honours Thesis.
Garebian, Keith. “Man of the Miramichi.” Rev. of Murder and Other Essays. Literary Review of Canada, 2020, reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2020/05/man-of-the-miramichi/.
Grainger, James. “Murder and Other Essays.” Rev. of Murder and Other Essays. Quill and Quire, 2019. www.quillandquire.com/review/murder-and-other-essays/
Lever, Susan. “Against the Stream: The Fiction of David Adams Richards.” Australian Canadian Studies: A Journal for the Humanities & Social Sciences, vol. 12, no. 1, 1994, pp. 81-9.
Lousley, Cheryl. “Knowledge, Power and Place: Environmental Politics in the Fiction of Matt Cohen and David Adams Richards.” Canadian Literature, vol. 195, 2007, pp. 11-30.
Lynes, Jeanette. “The Bay of Love and Sorrows: A Novel by David Adams Richards.” Rev. of The Bay of Love and Sorrows. The Antigonish Review, vol. 117, 1999, pp. 33-8.
Maillet, Greg. “God Is in The Lost Highway and Mercy Among the Children: Paradox, Peace, and the Existential Power of Christian Faith.” Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews, vol. 67, 2012, pp. 116-128.
Mason, Roger Burford. “Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi.” Rev. of Lines on the Water: A Fisherman’s Life on the Miramichi. Quill and Quire, 1998.
McNaughton, Janet. “Bay of Love and Sorrows.” Rev. of The Bay of Love and Sorrows. Quill and Quire, 1998. www.quillandquire.com/review/the-bay-of-love-and-sorrows/
Murphy, Patrick W. “There Is Something About the Land:” An Ecocritical Approach to the Works of David Adams Richards. 2005. University of New Brunswick, MA Thesis.
Pyper, Andrew. “Hope in the Desperate Hour.” Rev. of Hope in the Desperate Hour. Quill and Quire, 1996. www.quillandquire.com/review/hope-in-the-desperate-hour/
Q&Q Staff. “Outsider: David Adams Richards Gives Voice to the Hopeless.” Quill and Quire, 2000. www.quillandquire.com/authors/the-outsider/.
Richards, Linda. “January Interview: David Adams Richards.” January Magazine, 2006,
www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/darichards.html.
Rigelhof, T.F. “God Is.: My Search for Faith in a Secular World, by David Adams Richards” Rev. of God Is: My Search for Faith in a Secular World. The Globe & Mail, 2009. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/god-is-my-search-for-faith-in-a-secular-world-by-david-adams-richards/article4284111/
Scherf, Kathleen. “David Adams Richards’ Blood Ties: Essentially Women.” Room of One’s Own: A Feminist Journal of Literature and Criticism, vol. 14, no. 4, 1991, pp. 23-39.
---. “David Adams Richards: ‘He Must be a Social Realist Regionalist.’” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne, vol. 15, no. 1, 1990, www.journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/view/8117/9174.
Sturgeon, Linda-Ann. David Adams Richards: Loving Against the Odds. 1987.University of New Brunswick, MA Thesis.
Tremblay, Tony. “Answering the Critics: David Adams Richards and the Paradox of Unpopularity.” The Antigonish Review, vol. 128, 2002, pp. 119-28.
---. “David Adams Richards: Canada’s ‘Independent’ Intellectual.” Hollins Critic, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 1-14.
---, ed. David Adams Richards: Essays on His Works. Guernica Editions, 2005.
---. David Adams Richards of the Miramichi: A Biographical Introduction to His Work. University of Toronto Press, 2010.
Wheaton, Margo. “Mercy Among the Children.” Rev. of Mercy Among the Children. The Antigonish Review, vol. 127, 2001, pp. 117-21.
Wiersema, Robert. “Mercy Among the Children.” Rev. of Mercy Among the Children. Quill and Quire, 2000. www.quillandquire.com/review/mercy-among-the-children/
Williams, Jocelyn. “The Rifle Kicks Hard Both Ways: Rereading David Adams Richards” The Nashwaak Review, vol. 16/17, no. 1, 2006, pp. 46-66.
Woodford, Gillian. ‘Voices That Sputter Against the Background’: Communication in the Novels of David Adams Richards. 1995. University of New Brunswick, BA Honours Thesis.
Zenari, Vivian. “David Adams Richards.” Athabasca University, www.canadianwriters.athabascau.ca/english/writers/darichards/darichards.php.
Richards, David Adams. The Bay of Love and Sorrows. McClelland and Stewart, 1998.
---. Blood Ties. Oberon Press, 1976.
---. The Christmas Tree: Two Tales for the Holidays. Viking Press, 2006.
---. The Coming of Winter. Oberon Press, 1974.
---. Dancers at Night. Oberon Press, 1978.
---. Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace. McClelland and Stewart, 1990.
---. Facing the Hunter: Reflections on a Misunderstood Pursuit. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2011.
---. For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down. McClelland and Stewart, 1993.
---. The Friends of Meager Fortune. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2006.
---. God Is: My Search for Faith in a Secular World. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2009.
---. Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1996.
---. Hope in the Desperate Hour. McClelland and Stewart, 1996.
---. Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2011.
---. A Lad from Brantford & Other Essays. Fredericton: Broken Jaw Press, 1994.
---. Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1998.
---. Lives of Short Duration. Oberon Press, 1981.
---. Lord Beaverbrook. Penguin Canada, 2008.
---. The Lost Highway. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2007.
---. Mercy Among the Children. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2000.
---. Murder, and Other Essays. Doubleday Canada, 2019.
---. Nights Below Station Street. McClelland and Stewart, 1988.
---. One Step Inside. Chatham, NB: David Adams Richards, 1970.
---. Playing the Inside Out. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2008.
---. River of the Brokenhearted. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2003.
---. Road to the Stilt House. Oberon Press, 1985.
---. Small Heroics. The New Brunswick Chapbooks, 1972.
Richards, David Adams, and Margo Wheaton. Wild Green Light. Pottersfield Press, 2021.
Primary Sources: Other Writing
Richards, David Adams. “Canada’s Literary Community Gets Religion All Wrong.” The Globe & Mail [Toronto, ON] 14 Aug. 2009. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/canadas-literary-community-gets-religion-all-wrong/article4282314
---. "Drinking." Addicted: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane, Greystone Books, 2001. pp. 107-21.
Secondary Sources
Armstrong, Christopher, and Herb Wyile. “Firing the Regional Can(n)on: Liberal Pluralism, Social Agency, and David Adams Richards’s Miramichi Trilogy.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne, vol. 22, no. 1, 1997, pp. 1-18.
Bemrose, John. “Harmed and Dangerous.” Rev. of For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down by David Adams Richards. Maclean’s, 23 August 1993, p. 47.
Butler Hallett, David F., and Jules Lewis. “David Adams Richards.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2017. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/david-adams-richards
Byrne, George. “The Blood Hardened and the Blood Running: The Character of Orville in Blood Ties.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne, vol. 7, no. 1, 1982, pp. 55-62.
The Canadian Press. “Trudeau appoints acclaimed writer David Adams Richards to Senate.” Toronto Star, 30 Aug 2017, www.toronto.com/things-to-do/trudeau-appoints-acclaimed-writer-to-senate/article_c10f0e8b-4d22-51cb-af6b-1ea2cefc48b8.html
CBC Books. “Wild Green Light.” CBC, 20 April 2021,
www.cbc.ca/books/wild-green-light-1.5994827
Connor, William. “Coming of Winter, Coming of Age: The Autumnal Vision of David Adams Richards' First Novel.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne, vol. 9, no. 1, 1984, pp. 31-40.
---. “The River in the Blood: Escape and Entrapment in the Fiction of David Adams Richards.” World Literature Written in English, vol. 26, no. 2, 1986, pp. 269-77.
Cormier, Audrey M. Regionalism in the Fiction of Alistair MacLeod, Alden Nowlan and David Adams Richards. 2000. University of New Brunswick, MA Thesis.
Currie, Sheldon. “David Adams Richards: The People on the Roadway.” The Antigonish Review, vol. 99, 1994, pp. 67-75.
Doucet, Robbie. Trajectory of David Adams Richards’ Fiction. 1999. University of New Brunswick, BA Honours Thesis.
Falconer, Tim. “Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play.” Rev. of Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn’t Play. Quill and Quire, 1996. www.quillandquire.com/review/hockey-dreams-memories-of-a-man-who-couldn-t-play/
Fullerton, Anne. Deconstructing the Ivory Tower: David Adams Richards’ Re-Visioning of Intelligence in Mercy Among the Children and Friends of Meagre Fortune. 2011. University of New Brunswick, BA Honours Thesis.
Garebian, Keith. “Man of the Miramichi.” Rev. of Murder and Other Essays. Literary Review of Canada, 2020, reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2020/05/man-of-the-miramichi/.
Grainger, James. “Murder and Other Essays.” Rev. of Murder and Other Essays. Quill and Quire, 2019. www.quillandquire.com/review/murder-and-other-essays/
Lever, Susan. “Against the Stream: The Fiction of David Adams Richards.” Australian Canadian Studies: A Journal for the Humanities & Social Sciences, vol. 12, no. 1, 1994, pp. 81-9.
Lousley, Cheryl. “Knowledge, Power and Place: Environmental Politics in the Fiction of Matt Cohen and David Adams Richards.” Canadian Literature, vol. 195, 2007, pp. 11-30.
Lynes, Jeanette. “The Bay of Love and Sorrows: A Novel by David Adams Richards.” Rev. of The Bay of Love and Sorrows. The Antigonish Review, vol. 117, 1999, pp. 33-8.
Maillet, Greg. “God Is in The Lost Highway and Mercy Among the Children: Paradox, Peace, and the Existential Power of Christian Faith.” Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews, vol. 67, 2012, pp. 116-128.
Mason, Roger Burford. “Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi.” Rev. of Lines on the Water: A Fisherman’s Life on the Miramichi. Quill and Quire, 1998.
McNaughton, Janet. “Bay of Love and Sorrows.” Rev. of The Bay of Love and Sorrows. Quill and Quire, 1998. www.quillandquire.com/review/the-bay-of-love-and-sorrows/
Murphy, Patrick W. “There Is Something About the Land:” An Ecocritical Approach to the Works of David Adams Richards. 2005. University of New Brunswick, MA Thesis.
Pyper, Andrew. “Hope in the Desperate Hour.” Rev. of Hope in the Desperate Hour. Quill and Quire, 1996. www.quillandquire.com/review/hope-in-the-desperate-hour/
Q&Q Staff. “Outsider: David Adams Richards Gives Voice to the Hopeless.” Quill and Quire, 2000. www.quillandquire.com/authors/the-outsider/.
Richards, Linda. “January Interview: David Adams Richards.” January Magazine, 2006,
www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/darichards.html.
Rigelhof, T.F. “God Is.: My Search for Faith in a Secular World, by David Adams Richards” Rev. of God Is: My Search for Faith in a Secular World. The Globe & Mail, 2009. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/god-is-my-search-for-faith-in-a-secular-world-by-david-adams-richards/article4284111/
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