Here it is. What it was like in the residential schools. You have only to ask yourself how does it feel to have my six-year-old forcibly taken from me for years, without even imagining the lifelong effects. We are told of the experiences of five such children, extending to their family members and friends, well into their adulthood. Their school was on an island on the west coast, run by Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers. The physical and mental cruelty inflicted for transgressions was as regimental and unfeeling as it was damaging; sexual abuse is unthinkably regular. Yearning for home and mother, children grasp the slowly fading images and memories. Released as teenagers, they can’t erase the stigma of their formative years. The outside world has labels for them, too often easy targets for predators.
This is a novel ... but everything is real. Kenny never stopped trying to escape the school; as a grown man, he can’t find the freedom his soul needs. Lucy is hired for maid work at a scumbag motel where other Indigenous girls work. Maisie is too lost to put herself together. Clara is filled with rage that eats at her until she receives traditional healing. Howie’s mother pulls him out of school in a daring abduction, but opportunity arises later for revenge on his abusers. School victims become menial workers, migrant labourers, advocates or activists; some become parents, some turn into addicts or criminals. Being able to speak of their nightmares, and exorcise them, is almost impossible.
Every non-First Nations person needs to know these stories. But the book is also about home, about family warmth, comforting traditions, and closeness to the natural world. Michelle Good’s secure cultural grip is forthright, succinct, touched with powerful tenderness. One could say read it and weep. But we know, we knew, it was bad. Let’s DO more than tears. Let’s harass our politicians to treat our fellow human beings with respect and redress.
The school
▪ I pinched her arm, like we used to do when Sister hit us. We pinched ourselves harder and harder so we knew we could take the pain. (58)
▪ Kenny, the one we believed in. He was the one who never lost his taste for freedom. (113)
▪ “Please, Jesus, take care of Lily. Make her better with your hands that can make people better.” (128)
▪ “Where was the law then when he was beating us, breaking bones, and other, even worse things?” (79-80)
The men, later
▪ “What is it with you people? You’re your own worst enemy.” The foreman turned to walk away, shaking his head. (90)
▪ How many lives, besides hers and mine, were broken down like garbage in the name of this cross? (199)
▪ “He’s not my father. He’s some bum who knocked you up and took off.” (270)
▪ “Oh, Kenny, you are leaving me again.” (282)
▪ “They did that to him. Whatever they didn’t break in him, they bent.” (287)
▪ “Our childhood memories are about murder and mayhem. How many others can’t bear their own thoughts?” (298)
The women, later
▪ “It’s like most of me is gone. I can’t get it back.” (30)
▪ “What do you mean, ‘pimp’?” She looked at me and I wondered if I had seemed like such a child when I first hit the city. (56)
▪ There was something so sad about her and that yellow, dripping toast. Probably hadn’t had an egg in years. (63)
▪ They told me that after I was taken, no one told them where I was. They still didn’t know which school I’d been sent to. (67)
▪ He handed her back her Indian Card, dropping it just as she reached to take it. (151)
▪ Buffy and her singers were like a willow broom whisking the ugly feeling from the border cop right out of the air around her. (153)
▪ “Keep running! We’ll distract them,” three men, their braids flying, ran by her, back toward the cops. (177)
▪ “Clara, get it through your head: your job is not to change the world. Leave that to the politicians. Your job is to keep Indians out of jail.”
Jonathan Ames. A Man Named Doll. Mulholland Books/Hachette Book Group, 2021.
Yet another substance-abusing (before you receive a book, you can’t always tell from a blurb) Private Eye, this one with a sense of humour. He’s Happy Doll, thusly named by insensitive parents; better known mercifully as Hank. An ex-cop, he ekes out a living by finding missing people and some night security work at a massage parlour. He’s a bit sweet on a bartender, Monica, maybe it’s even love. All in all, Hank is a fairly placid guy who adores his dog George, smokes cannabis, and sees a shrink four times a week to work on a variety of issues. A run-in with a crazed meth-head at the massage parlour results in Hank inadvertently killing him while sustaining some vicious knife cuts himself. The doctor who patches him up gives him an opioid pain remedy that perhaps accounts for some for some of the confusion that follows.
Out of the blue, Hank’s old pal Lou asks him for a kidney. Seriously. Before Hank can figure out how he wants to answer that, Lou stumbles, bleeding, into his house the next night and dies. The action moves very fast as Hank chases Lou’s probable killer right into a mess that makes no sense at first. And what was Lou doing with a valuable diamond? Consulting resourceful friends like a pawn shop owner and a real estate agent helps Hank put some pieces together; he finds himself being hunted by black market organ harvesters. Aside from having his face ripped open a second time, the physical action slows down considerably when they capture him and Monica. Luckily Hank maintains his (weakened) sense of humour and appears to stay alive for an upcoming sequel. Quick, entertaining read, if you like sketchy guys earnestly trying to do the right thing.
Bits
▪ I’ve smoked too much over the years and I’m saturated with THC. (13)
▪ I have no problem telling George or the plants or the trees in my yard or my house that I love them but with people it doesn’t come so easy. (27)
▪ Could I possibly get away with two self-defense killings in forty-eight hours? I didn’t think so. (75)
▪ The time for making things right had passed. There was really only one thing to do now: get to them before they got to me. (90)
▪ There’s no quick fix, which is why analysis takes time, but you can if you just talk, hold back nothing, and face what most scares you—shift the course of your life, until you finally untangle, grow up, and wake up. (97)
▪ “Jesus, Hank,” he said. “A comparable diamond, emerald cut, that weight, has sold for $289,000.” (113)
▪ Maybe I could get my gun out fast and shoot them all and not hurt Monica. (173)
▪ “Your kidneys,” he said, tapping me on the right side of my body and then the left, before going elsewhere, “will bring in $200,000 each, but the second one will wait till we are done with you.” (182)
Gail Anderson-Dargatz. The Almost Wife. Ebook download from TPL. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2021.
Small town girl from Manitoulin meets sophisticated Toronto man and boom, instant togetherness. Kira and Aaron are planning their new life together, extra blissful because they’ve already produced their very own baby daughter, Evie. All they need is for Aaron’s custody battle to be settled—custody of his tween daughter Olive; he wants sole custody and ex-wife Madison is making it difficult. Each parent is trying to alienate the girl from the other. For the interim, poor Olive is shuttled back and forth, not knowing who she wants to live with. And it’s complicated: Olive is Aaron’s daughter with his first wife, but second wife Madison has been her mother for years before the divorce. While Olive spends time with her father, Madison is stalking Kira to get access to the girl. Kira has grown fond of Olive and wants to protect her from Madison’s lies about Aaron.
When Aaron goes on a business trip, Kira takes Olive and the baby to her old island home to evade Madison. That’s when the chaotic action begins; Madison follows them. She has a big surprise to spring. But Kira has history with Manitoulin and her own dysfunctional upbringing, not to mention her former boyfriend Nathan, that she’s kept from Aaron. Olive runs away; Evie disappears; Aaron arrives. As a “domestic thriller,” the basic plot is largely predictable with inevitable emphasis on formational childhoods. It loses some traction when the overwrought women resort to feral skills (guns! knives!). Mediumly thrilling but with some excellent heart-stopping chases.
Bits
▪ So, yes, as Aaron said, Madison was capable of anything, just as my mother was. I should be afraid of her. (27)
▪ My mother told me over and over I should fear him, until I came to believe it, until I became afraid of my father, as Olive had. (37-8)
▪ “How did you get in?” I demanded. You copied Olive’s key?” (42)
▪ But the van picked up speed, taking Olive farther and farther away from me. (?)
▪ “What would you do if you believed your child was in danger?” Her voice caught. “What would you do to save your child?” (114)
▪ When she saw me glancing at the track marks that were now exposed on her arm, she pulled her sleeve over them and held her wrist. (175)
Aaron
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Kira, don’t go hormonal on me.” (79)
“You killed a deer? In front of her?” (201)
Nathan
“You came up here to end things with me once and for all, didn’t you?” (101)
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