Wayne Johnston Books

Newfoundland at the turn of the twentieth century was a rugged, wind-torn colony adrift between empire and independence. I began the novel here because landscape shapes destiny. The cold, salt‑battered isolation of the island informs everything about the people who live there — their stubborn pride,...

From The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams

As Joey matures, his restless energy finds outlet in journalism. I wanted his early career in St. John’s to reveal both his confidence and his naiveté. Working as a reporter, he discovers the transformative power of words and the dangerous seductions of rhetoric. The press becomes his pulpit; each a...

From The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams

When I first came to the island, I brought little with me—some books, some old habits, and a body already weary with drink and regret. The island was not intended as escape, though the mainland surely believed that of me. It was more an act of surrender, an acknowledgment that I had finally exhauste...

From The Custodian of Paradise

Memory, for me, has never been linear—it loops and doubles back. When I write of St. John’s, I see it not chronologically but thematically, as a series of confrontations. There was my father, a figure both formidable and pitiable, whose disappointment shaped me like a sculptor’s chisel. He believed ...

From The Custodian of Paradise