Book Review #3 -Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

From the Publisher:
"Will Bird is a legendary Cree bush pilot, now lying in a coma in a hospital in his hometown of Moose Factory, Ontario. His niece Annie Bird, beautiful and self-reliant, has returned from her own perilous journey to sit beside his bed. Broken in different ways, the two take silent communion in their unspoken kinship, and the story that unfolds is rife with heartbreak, fierce love, ancient blood feuds, mysterious disappearances, plane crashes, murders, and the bonds that hold a family, and a people, together. As Will and Annie reveal their secrets—the tragic betrayal that cost Will his family; Annie's desperate search for her missing sister, the famous model, Suzanne—a remarkable saga of resilience and destiny takes shape. From the dangerous bush country of Northern Ontario to the drug-fuelled glamour of the Manhattan club scene, Joseph Boyden tracks his characters with a keen eye and a rare empathy for the empty places concealed within the heart. Through Black Spruce establishes Boyden as a writer of startling originality and uncommon power."

It is easy to see why this book won the Giller Prize this past year. It is very powerful and the narrative rings true. Nothing seems forced or fake and it was extremely interesting being able to get a glimpse into aboriginal culture.

I've long thought that the residential school system in Canada was one of the darkest and most evil things that has happened in this country. Not just for the abuse that was heaped upon children in those places but for the destroying of families. One of my favourite passages in the book addresses this:

"My mother's people made news back in the 1940s, just after the Second World War, for refusing to send my mother and her eight sisters and brothers to residential school in Fort Albany. When the RCMP tried to get involved, my grandparents took the children to their camp up the coast, not far from Hudson Bay, and protected them with their hunting rifles. They were some of the last to do that.

The government gave up on them, showed their weakness, and my mother and her brothers and sisters grew up never knowing the wemestikushu language, their ways, their schools. Lucky her.

I grew up wishing my father had done the same for me. Although I never said it out loud to him, the tension was there. We both knew his failure. All the fighting in his life as a young man until it was dried up when the time to fight over me came. And my anger at him caused a fissure in our relationship, a broken line of trust. The people responsible, they knew this same breaking happened in every family whose children they took. They did it on purpose. They were bent on crushing the old ways in order to sow the new. And if that meant parents and children who no longer really believed one another, so be it. Generation after generation. But my father and me, we knew something between us that we couldn't quite see had been damaged, sure as you might not see an animal nearby but know it's close by the tracks."

The Canadian Lit I've read lately has been so good and this book is no exception. The alternating narrative between Will and Annie keeps you interested in the parallel story lines. A really good read that I would definitely recommend.