The compact downtown core of St. John's. (Source: City of St. John's heritage core; coordinates approximate.)
Scenes set here
- February
Lisa Moore
“Helen watches as the man touches the skate blade to the sharpener. There is a stainless steel cone to catch the spray of orange sparks that fly up.”
Books here
settingIf We Caught FireBeth Ryan
St. John's wedding sets the novel in motion across a single summer.
- settingCome, Thou Tortoise
Jessica Grant
Audrey returns from Oregon to St. John's after her father's accident — the city is the novel's centre of gravity.
settingThis All HappenedMichael Winter
A year of daily diary entries from St. John's writer Gabriel English — the city is the novel.
settingNo One Knows About UsBridget Canning
Bridget Canning lives and writes in St. John's; the collection's interconnected stories circulate in the city.
subjectRock Paper SexKerri Cull
Journalistic portrait of St. John's sex industry beneath the city's tourist surface.
subjectThe Other Side of MidnightMike Heffernan
Oral history of St. John's taxi drivers crossing the city's neighbourhoods.
- subjectDon't Tell the Newfoundlanders
Greg Malone
Investigation of the political manoeuvring around Newfoundland's 1949 Confederation — a political story centred in St. John's.
- subjectOccupied St. John's
Steven High
Social history of St. John's during the Second World War, when the city was occupied by Allied forces.
mentionedAnnabelKathleen Winter
The novel's third act moves to St. John's, where the protagonist finds a self the outport couldn't hold.
- settingThe Glass Harmonica
Russell Wangersky
The Globe and Mail review explicitly anchors the novel to McKay Street, St. John's.
settingSome People's ChildrenBridget Canning
CBC Books and Miramichi Reader explicitly name 'St. Felix's' as the small outport setting and St. John's as the secondary locale.
- settingBetween Breaths
Robert Chafe
Playwrights Canada Press anchors Between Breaths to a Newfoundland setting through whale-rescue scientist Jon Lien's twenty-year career. Pinned at downtown St. John's as Lien's working base; finer in-text anchor pending.
- subjectStranger Things Have Happened
Carmelita McGrath
Heritage NL's biographical essay anchors the short-story collection to McGrath's downtown St. John's working life; the Atlantic Canadian Poets' Archive corroborates.
