Intervals of Hope

Nicholas Dixon lives with his mother and brother in London, England between the world wars. His father, Wilfrid, once with the First Battalion, First Canadian Regiment in the trenches of the Great War, now works in the coalmines of South Leeds and rarely returns to his family. Armed with his father's wartime journal, a spirited imagination, and a taste for insurgency, Nicholas embarks on a quest to reunite the family. A journey that will forever alter his perception of his father, leading Nicholas to confront his own cowardice.




Inspired by multiple interviews with a former WWII British Commando, whose father was in the trenches of WWI, and through eighty-five letters sent home during WWI by the author's great-grandfather, Intervals of Hope explores duty, responsibility, cowardice, abandonment, and the disparate paths to becoming a man of honour.



"Canniff's description is as powerful as any writer I have ever had in the Humber course."

---David Adams Richards, Governor General's Literary Award winner and co-winner of the Giller Prize.







"The constant interplay between father's journal and son's actions was brilliant. Full of human interest and emotion. Can't praise it enough."

--- Gordon Schottlander, Veteran, British Infantry, Royal Berkshire Regiment, WWII