Fifth Business | Social Concerns

Fifth Business Social Concerns

Fifth Business begins on December 27, 1908, in Deptford, Ontario. An incident occurs that sets off a chain of events that are not concluded until October, 1968, in Toronto when Boy Staunton, one of Canada's wealthiest men, dies mysteriously. The novel, which is written in the form of a memoir, traces the lives of the three people involved in the 1908 incident. One of the characters, Boy Staunton, has prospered materially, having embraced the gospel of wealth and materialism as preached by George Maiden Leadbeater. Seemingly never satisfied, Staunton continues to expand his economic domain and to raise the goals that define success for him throughout his life. His contemporary, Dunstan Ramsay, has lived a different kind of life. Becoming a history teacher, he stays in the same position for forty-five years. In addition to teaching, he publishes in his specialty, hagiography — the biographies of saints or other idealized...
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