DOCTOR BRINKLEY'S TOWER

The fourth novel from one of Canada's most critically acclaimed writers, Doctor Brinkley's Tower is a sensational, passionate story of jealousy and greed set against the backdrop of an impoverished Mexican border town in the 1920s.

Equal parts Mark Twain and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robert Hough's wildly imaginative fourth novel takes us to 1926 and Corazon de la Fuente, a tiny Mexican border town where the only industry is a run-down brothel. When a rich American doctor decides to build a gargantuan new radio tower in the town, fortunes change overnight. Yet not all for the good -- word of the new prosperity spreads, and Corazon is overrun by the impoverished, the desperate, and the criminal-minded. The tower's frequencies are so powerful the town glows green, and the signal is soon broadcasting through every bit of metal it can find: fencing wire, toasters, even a young woman's new braces. Worst of all, the rich doctor has attracted the affections of Corazon's most beautiful resident. Her spurned fiancé decides to fight back -- but is it possible to turn back the tide of change?

Doctor Brinkley's Tower is a rollicking, romantic masterwork that transports us to another time and way of life, yet makes us reflect on injustices all too relevant to our world today.

Robert Hough's debut novel, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. His second novel, The Stowaway, was a finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Award and chosen by the Boston Globe as one of the top ten fiction titles of 2004. His third novel, The Culprits, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Prize, the Commonwealth Award for Best Book (Canada and the Caribbean), and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.