About

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brian Thomas Isaac was born in 1950 on the Okanagan Indian Reserve near Vernon, BC. After completing grade eight, he found work in the oil fields and in construction, and eventually retired as a bricklayer. At the age of fifty, without any formal training, he began to write and seventeen years later he completed his first novel, All the Quiet Places. His debut is a national bestseller, won a 2022 Indigenous Voices Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and CBC’s Canada Reads. Brian and his wife live in West Kelowna where he enjoys time with his three grandchildren and is completing his third novel. His second novel, Bones of a Giant will be released by Penguin Random House in the Spring of 2025.

PHOTO GALLERY

Although Brian’s novels about the Toma family are fiction they are set in the same region and era in which Brian grew up.  Below are some photos of the Salmon Valley region and of Brian during his early years.

 

Salmon River
The Salmon River
Round Lake
Round Lake
Heart Lake
Heart Lake
Late afternoon shadows on the Range
Late Afternoon Shadows on the Range
Bones of a Giant Pine Tree on the Range
Bones of a Giant Pine Tree on the Range
Buttercups on the Range
Smith Cabin on the Range
The Old Smith House on the Range
Pine Trees on the Range
Brian and his brother Isadore. Brian is angry because his brother will not allow him to hold his birthday cake (1955)
Brian with pitchfork in oat field - 1955
Brian proudly harvesting oats in their newly cleared field.
Brian and his future brother-in-law overlooking Salmon River Valley
Brian in Valley View Alberta while working in the Oil Fields (1968)
Brian with Marlene the girl next door who he is still married to. (1972)
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