''Late Nights on Air'' is a novel by Canadian writer Elizabeth Hay, published by

McClelland & Stewart McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Random House of Canada, Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann. ...

in 2007. In the book, the author chronicles her experiences as a

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

journalist. The novel is set at a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

Yellowknife Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...

, Northwest Territories. Hay calls it a book "about the romance of the disembodied voice."

Plot Summary

After being fired from his latest television job, a disgraced Harry Boyd returns to his radio roots in the northern Canadian town of Yellowknife as the manager of a station no one listens to, and finds himself at the center of the station's unlikely social scene. New anchor Dido Paris, both renowned and mocked for her Dutch accent, fled an affair with her husband's father, only to be torn between Harry and another man. Wild child Gwen came to learn radio production, but under Harry's tutelage finds herself the guardian of the late-night shift. And lonely Eleanor wonders if it's time to move south just as she meets an unlikely suitor. While the station members wait for Yellowknife to get its first television station and the crew embarks on a life-changing canoe expedition, the city is divided over a proposal to build a pipeline that would cut across Native lands, bringing modernization and a flood of workers, equipment and money into sacred territory. Hay's crystalline prose, keen details and sharp dialogue sculpt the isolated, hardy residents of Yellowknife, who provide a convincing backdrop as the main cast tromps through the existential woods.

Awards

''Late Nights on Air'' was the winner of the 2007

Scotiabank Giller Prize The Giller Prize (sponsored as the Scotiabank Giller Prize), is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried competition be ...

.Northern Composure
''The New York Times'', June 1, 2008, by Meg Wolitzer, (retrieved 11/20/2012)

References

External links

Excerpt from ''Late Nights on Air'' at CanadianLiving.com

''Late Nights on Air''
2007 Canadian novels Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning works Novels about journalists Novels set in the Northwest Territories McClelland & Stewart books {{Canada-novel-stub