From small-town Alberta, Curtis comes to Edmonton to obtain a teaching degree. There he forms a close friendship with his elderly, blind Aunt Harriet, considered a family pariah due to her eccentric enthusiasm for a lost world of artists and musicians. When Curtis begins reading aloud to Harriet the diary her intended husband Phillip kept before his death during World War One, an obsessed Curtis examines parallels to his own life: his desire to become a skilful artist and to find fulfilling love. Timeless and essential, award-winning author Glen Husers Burning the Night spans across generations and distance, traversing from Vancouver to Halifax, as it bears down on the history of Canadian painting and Curtiss awakening as a gay man.
Glen Husers novels for young readers have won a number of awards. Touch of the Clown was a Mr. Christie Silver Award winner; Stitches won Canadas Governor Generals Award for Childrens Literature in 2003; and Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen received a Governor Generals Silver Medal in 2007. A teacher and librarian for most of his life in Edmonton, he currently lives in Vancouver. Visit Glen at www.glenhuser.com
"Burning the Night begins with fire; the blackened sketches and journal pages of an artist fluttering down to become memories. Like these charred artefacts, Huser's eloquent words become a puzzle on the pages, with pieces of the narrative fitting together to slowly reveal the lives of Aunt Harriet and of Curtis. This is the work of a master storyteller." -- Betty Jane Hegerat, author of The Boy