Tarstopping

by Christine Horne

Overview

In a flash, everything changes. After a group of radical environmentalists breaks into the house of a prominent oil company executive and holds him and his family hostage, the stage is set for a popular movement to coalesce around the incident.

They call themselves "Tarstoppers," and by occupying Calgary's parks and public areas they hope to shut down the oilsands. But even the most cynical of their number couldn't anticipate what happened next.

Now Tim and Shannon, an ordinary couple caught up in the middle of history, must navigate a world newly populated with fifth columnists, foreign radicals, agent provocateurs and black bloc anarchists as chaos ensues right outside their door.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781926455471
Publisher:	NeWest Publishers, Limited
Publication date:	10/15/2015
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Christine Rehder Horne was born in Toronto and has lived all across Canada, now making her home in Calgary. A Dalhousie University graduate, Horne is a passionate gardener and volunteer in her community. Tarstopping is her first novel.

Read an Excerpt

Sunday
May 27, 2012

They should have cancelled dinner tonight, Tim thought again. But everyone had wanted to come, to get close to ground zero, as Jason was calling it, since Tim and Shannon lived only blocks from the site. If he stood on his front porch would he be able to hear the roar of the crowd to the southwest? Was it swelling even as they ate, soon to engulf his house?

"I can't believe this has happened," Jason was saying. It was what everyone kept saying. "I can't believe they could just walk into the house of the company's president and take him and his family hostage. Just walk in on a Saturday morning when everyone's home and the alarm system's off. No violence, no guns, just all those radicals who'd convoyed over the mountains chaining themselves together around the house. Who'd ever think that'd work? The hostage-takers have to be as gob-smacked as everyone else at their success."

"We're never prepared," said Shannon. "Despite history, we never believe ahead of time what can happen."

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Tarstopping

"This imagined clash between economic and environmental concerns admirably plays out tensions in the tar sands debate, exposing the best and the worst of humanity and showing what fighting for ideology can look like when the fighting stops being just a metaphor."
~ Andrew Guilbert, Alberta Views

"The story also serves as a warning, but not the suspected 'the earth is going to hell' moral one would expect. Instead, the author prompts readers to face the reality of how ordinary people can be driven to violence with just the perception of a threat."
~ Jessica McIntosh, Fort McMurray Today

"Tarstopping offers a complex argument for a complex issue."
~ Leo Brent Robillard, Backwater Review

From the Publisher