Richard B. Wright’s latest novel is modern fiction at its very finest, an eminently readable, exquisitely crafted examination of a 74-year-old man and the boy he used to be. October tells the resonant story of retired professor James Hillyer, whose chance encounter with a ghost from his past while visiting his gravely ill daughter in England stirs memories of a summer he never could forget. Alternating between the present and the past, Wright weaves a captivating coming-of-age tale set in Second World War-era Quebec with a heart-rending meditation on mortality set in modern-day Europe.

James is a bookish, 14-year-old “drip” from Toronto who finds himself drawn into the world of the rakish young American Gabriel Fontaine after he has been sent to spend the summer in Gaspé with his uncle after his mother suffers a nervous breakdown. Crippled by polio and forced to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, Gabriel is charming, cruel and unlike anyone James has ever met. As the two young men cultivate a friendship, their efforts are complicated by their mutual infatuation with Odette Huard, a local girl who works at the hotel that Gabriel is staying at with his mother.

Sixty years later, James is a retired professor faced with the prospect of watching his daughter die from the same disease that took his wife 20 years earlier. As James grapples with the idea of outliving his daughter, he runs into Gabriel outside of a swank London hotel and is once again pulled into the wealthy American's orbit. Instead of simple friendship, however, Gabriel is now looking for company on a final journey, an offer that James reluctantly accepts.

While the two parts of the story are fascinating enough in their own right, it’s the tension between them that makes October such a captivating read. Wright reminds us that our identities are the result of a dialogue between past and present selves, neither fixed nor fleeting, but always in flux. They explore the need to live day-to-day life even as great public dramas play out around us. Told in spare, evocative prose that prefers declarative sentences to literary fireworks, October's apparent simplicity belies the emotional complexity of the tale.

October is the 11th published novel by Wright and the second since 2001's Clara Callan won both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award. A masterful craftsman who writes in a variety of styles, Wright has established himself as one of the finest living Canadian novelists. October is a lovely addition to his body of work and a fine jumping-off point to explore his career.