This ardent but unsure first novel [Who Has Seen the Wind] portrays a number of people in [a town on a Saskatchewan W(illiam) O(rmond) Mitchell 1914– Photograph by Peter Patterson; courtesy of Macmillan of Canadaprairie]…. The story centers about Brian O'Connal and the growing years of his boyhood.

Brian had a curiosity about all sorts of things, from gophers to God. Though he couldn't put it into words, he was especially curious about the cycle of life….

Every street in the town ended in the open prairie, and every moving experience in the boy's life led him to an elusive meaning that he longed to grasp….

Where Brian is concerned this is a seeking book. Like many first novels, it describes the growing pains of youth and the enlarging claims that the mind and heart make on the world….

Probably all the people in the town...