SOURCE: "Eccentrics in a Luminous Maelstrom," in The Globe and Mail, Toronto, December 6, 1986, p. E21.

In the positive review below, Wigston relates the story line of The Whirlpool, noting Urquhart's focus on history and eccentric characters.

The Whirlpool is a jewel of a book: its finely polished facets are full of light, yet suggest numerous depths. The depths are real, for the story takes place in late nineteenth-century Niagara Falls, and much of the action focuses on the mystery of the huge cataract and its adjacent whirlpool. But the depths here equally serve to illuminate the collective identity of a people.

Jane Urquhart brings her poetic sensibility to bear on the psyches of an eccentric set of Ontarians, bracketing their tales with a portrait of poet Robert Browning on the final day of his life, in Venice. Watery Venice gives way to watery Niagara during the closing days...