Millionaire lumber man, financier, press baron, Max Aitken always attracted both approval and criticism in equal measure. He was an irrepressible entrepreneur, rising from modest beginnings in New Brunswick to become the world's most powerful newspaperman and a British Lord by the age of forty. He counselled kings and statesmen, bedded scores of women, supported Canadian art, and became Winston Churchill's invaluable wartime minister. Yet despite his loyalty and service to the British empire, Beaverbrook was mostly derided by English society as an overly ambitious colonial. Novelist David Adams Richards, the bard of Miramichi, brings unique insight into the life of his fellow New Brunswicker, Max Aitken, reminding us of why he mattered then, and why he matters now.

David Adams Richards is the author of the novels The Lost Highway, The Friends of Meager Fortune, River of the Brokenhearted, and Mercy Among the Children, which won the Giller Prize and was nominated for the Governor General's Award and the Trillium Award. He is the author of the celebrated Miramichi trilogy: Nights Below Station Street, winner of the Governor General's Award; Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace, winner of the Canadian Authors' Association Award; and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down. His novel The Bay of Love and Sorrows has been made into a feature film.