The Distant Whisper

About the Book

“ In his first novel, Finding Marco, author Ken Cancellara describes how, after years of corporate activity, the novel’s protagonist (Mark Gentile) has a personal “awakening” in realizing that his ambition for material success has overshadowed his need for happiness and a life of ethics and morality. Sun-drenched memories of life as it once was in Gentile’s hometown of Acerenza, Italy call him back to reconnect with his roots and with the simple life he had left behind a half century earlier. In Acerenza, Gentile took the lessons given to him, as a child, by his grandfather that what matters in life is ethical behaviour without expecting anything in return. In his poetic and eloquent sequel , “The Distant Whisper”, the author continues to quell the turbulence in his soul caused by the continuing struggle between the two competing forces of raw ambition and the need for a life framed by morality. He takes the reader through an odyssey of beautiful descriptions of the Italian countryside in the Amalfi coast and of the Southern Italians who inhabit that beautiful corner of the world. While continuing to bask in this indescribable beauty, the protagonist is being slowly pulled back by a “distant whisper” to the corporate life he had left behind in North America to pull the corporation he had left behind back from the brink. Cancellara’s recounting of the corporate manoeuvres to save the company could only have been described so realistically by a person who had had hands-on experience as a business attorney and as an executive for many years. But will Mark Gentile’s soul finally find peace in the end? Will he return permanently to his place a birth—the place where he had his epiphany or remain in his adopted homeland of Canada? The novel’s running theme is finding a balance between societally-imposed ambitions and a more reflective way of life. It is the internal struggle that society will be facing more as our younger generations become disillusioned with the pressures of maintaining career obligations and our aging populations as they enter the more mature and reflective periods in their lives.

About the Author

“Ken Cancellara has practiced law as a senior partner in two of Canada’s largest and most prestigious law firms., specializing in business law. He has also had senior executive roles in major corporations, from which he has drawn his business expertises and acumen. In addition, Ken continues in his substantial roles of a Board member of Vita Mens Sana and Villa Charities, two prominent charitable organizations dealing with disability and mental health. He has recently been the Spirit Of Ontario Award for his accomplishments in Business and Enterprise and currently serves as President of The National Congress of Italian Canadians (Ontario, among his many other charitable functions). Nevertheless, Ken’s love has always been for spiritual introspection and the literary greats of the Italian Renaissance. The writings and musings of the giants of European literature and poetry such as Petrarca, Boccaccio, Dante Alighieri and Victor Hugo have shaped his thoughts about morality and his personal ethical values, and have been the principal contributors to the person he has become and the protagonists he describes in his novels. Ken was born in Acerenza, a small, idyllic and isolated village in the Appenine mountains of the Basilicata Region of southern Italy. It is in this setting that Ken goes back to his roots and, while re-living the memories from his youth and the lessons from his benevolent grandfather, he reshapes his life and finds important new values. In many ways, the internal struggles of the protagonist in his novels, Mark Gentile, mirror his own internal struggles, and society’s struggles, between the need to climb the financial ladder and the need to find a balance in one’s life so that ethics and morality do not play a subservient role. Ken’s love of writing and his zest for life is demonstrated in his passionate, poetic and eloquent descriptions of Italy and of Italians together with their customs and their foods---as can only be seen through the eyes of a native Italian who has never forgotten his place of birth.”