The Newfoundland Master Narrative and Michael Crummey’s Galore: An Interpretive Framework

Abstract

This article presents a framework for identifying and analyzing the Newfoundland master narrative, a narrative that is powerful and persistent in Newfoundland literature, its marketing, and its popular and critical reception. This master narrative problematically positions Newfoundlanders as timeless and authentic but also moving inexorably toward loss and disappearance. As a representative case, this narrative is shown to be fundamental to the novels, public persona, and reception of Michael Crummey, one of Newfoundland’s most popular and acclaimed writers, focusing on his 2009 novel Galore. Through an analysis of Galore and Crummey’s framing authorial comments, the figures, structures, and perspectives that are fundamental to the Newfoundland master narrative are identified. While Crummey’s novel does contain diverse characters, and while he has publicly affirmed the diversity of the Newfoundland population, we show that his depiction of diversity ultimately affirms the exclusionary master narrative. And, in this, he is part of a wider tendency, even among those who explicitly critique the Newfoundland master narrative, to overlook its presence, underestimate its power, or use it despite themselves. This interpretive framework is thus intended to expose and to critically engage with the often hidden workings of the Newfoundland master narrative.