We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About Ragged Company
Product Description Four chronically homeless people–Amelia One Sky, Timber, Double Dick and Digger–seek refuge in a warm movie theatre when a severe Arctic Front descends on the city. During what is supposed to be a one-time event, this temporary refuge transfixes them. They fall in love with this new world, and once the weather clears, continue their trips to the cinema. On one of these outings they meet Granite, a jaded and lonely journalist who has turned his back on writing “the same story over and over again” in favour of the escapist qualities of film, and an unlikely friendship is struck. A found cigarette package (contents: some unsmoked cigarettes, three $20 bills, and a lottery ticket) changes the fortune of this struggling set. The ragged company discovers they have won $13.5 million, but none of them can claim the money for lack proper identification. Enlisting the help of Granite, their lives, and fortunes, become forever changed. Ragged Company is a journey into both the future and the past. Richard Wagamese deftly explores the nature of the comforts these friends find in their ideas of “home,” as he reconnects them to their histories. Review “Wagamese writes with brutal clarity…. [and] finds alleviating balance through magical legend and poetic swells of sensate imagery.” — The Globe and Mail “[ Ragged Company] has … melancholy tenderness and spiritual yearning. Wagamese evokes each character’s consciousness and history with compassion, deep understanding and a knowledge of street life.” — Vancouver Sun About the Author Richard Wagamese is an Ojibway from the Wabasseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario. After winning a National Newspaper Award for Column Writing, he published two novels in the 1990s: Keeper’n Me and A Quality of Light. His autobiographical book, For Joshua, was published in 2002 and his most recent novel, Dream Wheels, was published in 2006. He lives outside Kamloops, British Columbia. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Is it you?Yes.Where have you been?Travelling.Yes. Of course. Where did you get to?Everywhere. Everywhere I always wanted to go, everywhere I ever heard about.Did you like it?I loved it. I never knew the world was so big or that it held so much.Yes. It’s an incredible thing.Absolutely.What did you think about all that time?Everything. I guess I thought about everything. But I thought about one thing the most.What was that?A movie. Actually, a line from a movie.Really?Yes. Funny, isn’t it? Out of all the things I could have thought about over and over, I thought about a line from a movie.Which one?Casablanca. When Bogie says to Bergman, “The world don’t amount to a hill of beans to two small people like us?” Remember that?Yes. I remember. Why?Because that’s what I think it’s all about in the end.What?Well, you live, you experience, you become, and sometimes, at the end of things, maybe you feel deprived, like maybe you missed out somehow, like maybe there was more you could have–should have–had. You know?Yes. Yes, I do.But the thing is, at least you get to finger the beans.Yes. I like that–you get to finger the beans.Do you ever do that?All the time.Me too.Let’s do that now. Let’s hear all of it all over again.Okay. Do you remember it?All of it. Everything. Every moment.Then that’s all we need.The beans.Yes. The beans. Book One Shelter One For The Dead It was Irwin that started all the dying. He was my eldest brother, and when I was a little girl he was my hero, the one whose shoulders I was always carried on and whose funny faces made me smile even when I didn’t want to. There were five of us. We lived on an Ojibway reserve called Big River and our family, the One Sky family, went back as far in tribal history as anyone could recall. I was named Amelia, after my grandmother. We were a known family–respected, honoured–and Irwin was our shining hope. I was the only girl, and Irwin made me feel special, like I was his hero.
