David Bergen Books in Order

People shaped by life’s pressures struggle with the effects of their words and actions on those around them. These stories explore damaged relationships and emotional distance, following characters who often cannot recognize the hurt they cause.

In the prairie town of Lesser, Johnny Fehr embraces religion and plans a youth center, but cannot leave an affair behind. His wife, lover, and neighbors become entangled in the gap between public virtue and private desire.

After his son Stephen's death, Paul Unger withdraws to his farm as grief strains his marriage. Then Stephen's former girlfriend arrives with a young boy she says is Paul's grandson, reopening questions of responsibility and family.

Sixteen-year-old aspiring poet Mason Crowe navigates his parents' separation and his own uncertain future in Winnipeg. His relationship with Lena, a girl from a Christian family struggling with mental illness, brings intimacy and difficult new questions.

Decades after serving in Vietnam, Charles Boatman returns to the country and disappears. His children Ada and Jon travel to Danang to find him, confronting their father's wartime past and their different responses to his absence.

The Byrd family spends a troubled summer at a commune near Kenora, where eldest daughter Lizzy meets Ojibway teenager Raymond Seymour. Their relationship unfolds amid family tensions, racial hostility, and the occupation of nearby Anicinabe Park.

Columnist Morris Schutt takes leave from work after his son dies in Afghanistan and his marriage begins to unravel. Philosophy and attempts at new relationships become part of his uncertain search for meaning through grief.

Born in 1930, Hope Koop follows the expected path of marriage, motherhood, and church life in Manitoba. Across decades of domestic obligations and social change, she struggles with mental health and questions about the person she might become.

Arthur grows up in the Alberta town of Tomorrow, feeling distant from his family's beliefs and expectations. After his brother returns damaged by Vietnam, Arthur leaves for Paris, pursuing writing, relationships, and a life beyond home.

Iso works at a Guatemalan fertility clinic and becomes pregnant by its doctor. When her daughter is taken away, she travels north into the United States, navigating poverty, borders, and unequal power in her search for the child.

Stories set in Vietnam, Honduras and the Canadian prairies follow people unsettled by desire, faith and moral uncertainty. A closing novella centers on a young woman resisting the rules of her Mennonite community as she searches for another life.

Psychiatrist Lucille Black sees her private life exposed when her former husband writes a memoir about their son's death. Travels to Thailand and France draw her into further questions about family obligation, desire, and her changing identity.

During the Russian Revolution, three people in Ukraine try to preserve love and family amid competing armies and shifting loyalties. A deserting bookseller, a stableboy drawn to anarchists and a mother protecting her child confront violence from every direction.