The Stone Carvers

In 1866 Father Archangel Gstir, a good-natured Bavarian priest, is sent by God and King Ludwig to the wilds of Canada to set up a new parish. Recruiting Joseph Becker, an old-world trained carver, to create a crucifix, Father Gstir whips up enough local pageantry to rally a congregation, and eventually to build a huge stone church and install a bell. Several decades on, Joseph Becker is teaching his astounding carving skills to his grandchildren. One of them, Klara, has a talent for tailoring and for carving, as well as a surfeit of what the local nuns call 'a fondness for men's work'. She also has Eamon O'Sullivan so in thrall, he can only sit speechless, watching, in her kitchen, while Klara's anger, curiosity and desire do battle with his silence. But by 1914 the First World War has drawn many thousands to the battlefields including Eamom and nothing is ever the same again. Over a decade after the war, Allward, a Canadian architect, determines to carve an impossibly large and ambitious memorial in finest Dalmation limestone near Vimy Ridge in France to honour the Canadian missing. It is at this monument that the unforgettable characters of Urquhart's epic story finally congregate with their tools and skills to carve and remember.