Plenty of Harm in God is the story of Clare, twenty years old and accidentally pregnant, and her return from her native Newfoundland to Inisheer, Ireland. The goal of the journey is to fulfill a pact made five years earlier with her cousin Gillian, after a bizarre set of circumstances led to the end of the surreal and mystical life of Clare's young mother Molly.
Clare's despair, and her belief that her genealogy is 'poisoned', have convinced her that death is the only answer but her search brings her back to people who believe in the possibilities her life holds.
Plenty of Harm in God is about the decisions we make and those that are made for us, and the power of faith whether it be in 'God', accident, or the simple possibility of change.
Dana Bath is originally from Corner Brook, Newfoundland. She now lives in Montreal, where she teaches English and writes. Bath has been an award winning writer since her early college years. She has won prizes from Grain Magazine's Short Grain Contest, Anvil Press's International Three Day Novel Contest, and This Magazine's Great Canadian Literary Hunt. Her book of short stories, What Might Have Been Rain, was published by Conundrum Press in 1998. She has published fiction and non-fiction in Index, Room of One's Own, Grain, subTerrain, Bitch, Hour Montreal and Matrix.
"Slightly off the mainstream, something of a surprise, an undeniably clear voice that exposes a new look at the [Newfoundland] landscape."
— Atlantic Books Today, Winter 2001
"Bath's writing is confident, plain, and breezy, with just enough forays into poetry to feel Irish."
— Montreal Review of Books, Fall & Winter 2001-02
"Bath's tale of love, loss, and survival moves back and forth like little waves 'sweet as the surface of tea in a storm' between Newfoundland and Ireland."
— Gail Scott
"...a tremendous achievement for a first novel."
— Event, 2002
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