"Beside Still Waters has all that is great of Hemingway, Conrad and Dostoevsky."

Read the full review "Callaghan crafts must-read masterpiece"
in the Winnipeg Free Press

Beside Still Waters is "a powerful and uncompromising love story by renowned writer Barry Callaghan."

"...breathtaking..."

"Callaghan's prose is pure poetry..."


Read the full review,
"A breathtaking journey", in the Globe and Mail

Find out what the members of Toronto's Wheat Sheaf Literary Society think of Beside Still Waters here.

Barry Callaghan - Canada’s Man of Letters

Find out the key information about Barry’s life, his work, his books, events and tours. In recent news, Barry’s latest novel Beside Still Waters is in bookstores.

BESIDE STILL WATERS is a passionate love story, with its roots in Toronto and its resolution in the dark heart of contemporary Africa. Adam Waters’ search for the woman he loves, who has mysteriously disappeared from their hotel room, takes him from the casinos of Puerto Rico to war-torn Gabon and a leper colony deep in the African bush. Counterpointing Adam’s quest are his memories from boyhood, and of his father, wandering jazzman Sweet Web Waters, his experiences as a war correspondent, and the girl who becomes his lover, dancer Gabrielle. Callaghan confronts the pure joy that can be in sexuality and the evil that is inherent in the nature of growth itself, by combining the excitement of an adventure story with the exuberant love of language.

“The writing is humane. With a tiny detail, in one well-crafted scene (he is a master short story writer after all) Callagan offers a window onto the souls of the wounded, damaged, even slightly deranged characters.” –Globe and Mail

Read the full review, “A breathtaking journey” from Globe & Mail April 4, 2009.