How Long Is “The Far Shore”?

Set in 1918 Ontario, The Far Shore employs both melodramatic conventions and experimental formal strategies to tell the tale of Eulalie, a Quebecoise woman, and her love affair wit Tom McLeod (a thinly veiled fictionalization of Canadian painter Tom Thomson). Married to a Toronto engineer, Eulalie finds life with him oppressive. Together she and Tom escape to the wilds of Northern Ontario, where they enjoy a brief idyll before being hunted down by her jealous husband. In its narrative and symbolism, The Far Shore deftly explores tensions between women and men, nature and industry, French and English, and art and commerce.