Craig Forrester is newly returned to Winnipeg following World War I, and he has returned to a city and a country mired in social upheaval. Will he choose the complacency of upward mobility or his personal, more socially conscious ethical code? Originally published in 1923, The Magpie is a social commentary turned novel about post-war disillusionment. Set against the backdrop of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, The Magpie offers an articulate and perceptive examination of the greed, hypocrisy, and intolerance of the “decent” classes, the agrarian myth, the role of women in post-war society, the role of art in social critique, and the evolution of moral codes in settler-Canadian society.
"Distinctly striking.”
—
Canadian Bookman
, 1924