The Difference

The Difference is a breathtaking tour-de-force by one of Canada’s most celebrated authors, a writer with the astonishing ability to bring a past world to vivid life while revealing the moral complexity of our own.

What is the difference between ourselves and other humans? Between human and animal? Where does that difference persist in our minds? These are the questions Marina Endicott explores in this sweeping novel set on the Morning Light, a ship from Nova Scotia sailing the South Pacific in 1912. Thea and Kay are half-sisters, separated in age by more than a decade. After the death of their stern father, head of a residential school in western Canada, the elder sister, Thea, returns east for her long-awaited marriage to the captain of the ship. She cannot abandon her younger sister, so Kay joins her, and together they embark on fateful voyage around the world.

Taking inspiration from the true story of a small boy who was brought on board a Canadian sailing ship in the South Seas, Endicott shows us a vanished world in all its wildness and wonder, and its darkness, prejudice, and difficulty too.

DIVE DEEPER

Interviews

• “Marina Endicott: God Does Give Us Help in Milk and Baseball” — Humber Literary Review

Videos

• “WIR Endicott Feb 6, 2014 Atrium” — Toronto Public Library