Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction
Short listed for:
2006 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction
2005 Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
The 2005 John W. Dafoe Book Prize

"In an age when 'disaster relief' is a familiar trope and FEMA has become a punch line, it's interesting to read how our predecessors dealt with apocalyptic carnage. In 1917 a munitions ship blew up in the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, devastating the waterfront and triggering a murderous tsunami. A single telegram reached Boston, and, braving a crushing blizzard, hundreds of volunteers mobilized to help. Mac Donald is a cracking-good storyteller, and she's written the definitive account of the disaster and its relief-commemorated to this day by Halifax's annual donation of a Christmas tree to Boston." —Andrew Rimas, Boston Magazine

"Laura Mac Donald, a Halifax native, has written a vivid piece of history (some parts may be too vivid for the squeamish reader). Combing through the official records-some of which had lain untouched since 1918-she put together a historical narrative with compelling facts as well as personal stories that will keep the memory of the Halifax explosion alive for another century.— Steve Dunham, senior editor, Analytic Services The Journal of Homeland Security

"Curse of the Narrows is a story of a forgotten tragedy, meticulously researched, and a reminder, if one were still needed, of the necessity to prepare for the unforeseeable as well as the foreseen."—Leonard Boasberg, Philadelphia Inquirer

"Laura M. MacDonald, a native Haligonian, has produced probably the definitive reconstruction of events that day...MacDonald's attempt to overlay a narrative structure to portray messy human events succeeds handsomely...The quick action by authorities and volunteers saved hundreds of lives. It will take a whole other book to explain why, 88 years on, the response to the Katrina disaster was so much slower and deadlier."—Neal Matthews, San Diego Union Tribune

"Laura M. Mac Donald, who grew up across Halifax Harbor in Dartmouth, gives a detailed, often wrenching account of this calamity in Curse of the Narrows, a book full of ordinary people overwhelmed by a disaster...Reading Curse of the Narrows is not unlike following coverage of Hurricane Katrina: the account of the initial disaster holds us riveted...there is a present-day resonance to all parts of this tale."—Neil Genzlinger, New York Times Book Review

"This book is like an expensive Swiss watch, meticulously crafted, perfectly assembled, and relentlessly recording, second by dreadful second, the story of one of the greatest and most lethal explosion of all time. I have been fascinated by the Halifax disaster for many years, and have always wondered who might one day produce the definitive account. Well, to Laura Mac Donald go the laurels: she is a genius of a researcher and a demon of a writer, and the achievement of her marvelous book will last for as long as our memory of this most terrible event."—Simon Winchester

"Laura M. Mac Donald's powerful account...cannot be read this fall without thinking of the Gulf Coast hurricanes. And the immediacy of those current disasters does not diminish that of nearly a century past. If anything, Mac Donald's account of the Halifax disaster more closely focuses the mind on the present—perhaps by allowing the reader to consider how one might respond to an account of Katrina and Rita a half-century or more from now...Mac Donald, a Halifax native, has crafted a fine account of the disaster, solidly balanced between the onrushing sweep of events and their growing impact on survivors and witnesses."—Michael Kenney, Boston Globe

"Compelling...[Curse of the Narrows] brings to light a shocking and fascinating disaster—one that many people will be surprised they've never heard of."—Cherie Parker, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Well-constructed tale of a horrific unnatural disaster...the largest explosion in world history before the atomic bomb...he city was unprepared for a disaster of such magnitude, while relief efforts that were organized from as far afield as Boston and New York were hampered by the crowning touch—a huge blizzard that swept across Halifax on night of the blast...A scarifying portrait."—Kirkus Reviews

"A minute-by-minute account of the disaster. She describes how many of the people miraculously survived, the extraordinary relief efforts, and the medical procedures in eye surgery and pediatric...Her book captures in vivid detail the history of this catastrophe."—Booklist