The Gunsmith's Daughter

Shortlisted, Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction 1971. Lilac Welsh lives an isolated life with her parents at Rough Rock on the Winnipeg River. Her father, Kal, stern and controlling, has built his wealth by designing powerful guns and ammunition. Hes on the cusp of producing a .50 calibre assault rifle that can shoot down an airplane with a single bullet, when a young stranger named Gavin appears at their door, wanting to meet him before enlisting for the war in Vietnam. Gavins arrival sparks an emotional explosion in Lilacs home and inspires her to begin her own life as a journalist, reporting on the war thats making her family rich. The Gunsmiths Daughter is both a coming-of-age story and an allegorical novel about Canada-US relations. Psychologically and politically astute, and gorgeously written, Margaret Sweatmans portrait of a brilliant gunsmith and his eighteen-year-old daughter tells an engrossing story of ruthless ambition, and one young womans journey toward independence.