Indian Horse

Finished April 26
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese

This novel follows Saul Indian Horse, a man who has hit bottom in his life, and while at a native healing centre looks back on his life to see what brought him to where he is now.
He looks back at his early life on the land with his brother, parents, grandparents, and other family members, particularly when they camp on the remote island that is special to his family.
He tells of his experience being brought to residential school, and of the priest that introduced him to hockey. Saul gradually reveals his life, those that influenced it for good and bad, those that he still feels something for, and the things that matter most to him.
Saul has natural skills for many things, and he gradually comes to accept these for what they can do for him.
This is a story of the impact of residential schools, here fictional, but real for so many. This is a story that brings some of that impact to readers in a meaningful way. This book had me laughing, crying, and touched deeply. Wagamese is a master writer, and when telling stories like this you can see that clearly. An amazing read.
A colleague urged me to take this book off my shelf where it had been lingering and once I did, I had trouble putting it down. I urge every Canadian who hasn't already read this book to do so. Besides being winning the 2013 Canada Reads People's Choice, this book was also shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, winner of the First Nations Community Read, and on the Globe and Mail top 100 list for 2012.

Carpentaria

Finished August 22
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

I bought this novel from Red Kangaroo Books as a souvenir when I visited Alice Springs in 2009, so about time I finally got around to reading it. The novel was the winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award for 2007. Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation.
It is set in the gulf country of north-western Queensland around the town of Desperance. The town was settled by people named Smith some indeterminate time back. The aboriginals have split into two groups: the Westend Pricklebush people named by Norm Phantom, and the splinter group in the Eastend, led by Joseph Midnight. Norm had a strong-willed wife, Angel Day, with whom he had seven children, the daughters Girlie, Janice, and Patsy, and the sons Donny, Inso, Will, and Kevin. Donny and Inso work at the Gurfurrit mine that both supports the community with jobs, and kills the community through its activities. Kevin, the youngest, has disabilities that often confine him to bed with seizures. Will has his own part of the story here. Norm stuffs fish, making them seem alive again, and using his own secret mixture of ingredients to do so.
Angel eventually leaves Norm to take up with Mozzie Fishman, a religious figure who leads a convoy of aboriginal men through the desert on long trips of conversion, and moves to the Eastend.
One day a man walks out of the ocean, having lost everything in a storm, including most of his memory. His name is Elias Smith, and the two adopts him easily. He forms a friendship with Norm and often the two fish in the ocean together until the mayor, Stan Bruiser, conscripts Elias to be town watchman. When something goes horribly wrong in town, Elias is blamed and driven from the town, and the magical part of the story begins in earnest. Will is blamed, and local police officer Truthful E'Strange is searching for him, while drawn to one of his sisters.
This is a story of myths and politics, of white and aboriginal, of land and water. As the story began, the river was being renamed Normal from its previous Wangala, after Norm Phantom.
I would classify this book as a tale using elements of magic realism to tell the tale of colonialism, corporate greed, native rights, and the land itself. It refers to the ancestral serpent, the creator of Dreamtime, and the names of people both tell us about them and mislead us. Time is hard to pin down, and the elements are used to control the plot, moving people towards and apart from each other. This is a tale of depth, of layers and meanings that you have to think about. A wonderful book that I am already drawn to reread.

Sarah Thornhill

Finished September 16
Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville

Every novel I read by Kate Grenville confirms her as a wonderful writer. Sarah Thornhill's story begins as a child, the youngest child of William Thornhill. William came to Australia as a convict, but worked hard and became a landowner, with a nice house on the Hawkesbury River. Sarah isn't a demure girl, but one who rides horses, loves spending time outdoors, and asks questions when she wants to know things. She is close to her oldest brother Will, and his friend Jack Langland. Jack is someone Sarah has had strong feelings for since she was a child, and intends to marry one day. Jack appears to have strong feelings for her as well. But  Sarah's father has a secret, and when Sarah makes her intentions known, this secret is revealed to Jack with devastating results.
Bereft by the loss of Jack, Sarah finds herself a new life, but when the past returns years later, she must face her family's history.
A novel of race, family, and Australian history, this is a tale that shows the best and the worst. Sarah is a young woman with a strong will and a strong sense of self. Her story shows her character growth.

Australian Fiction

Finished October 9
The Incredible Journey by Catherine Martin
My mother-in-law spotted this in a book sale and thought of me. I'd never heard of it before, but it was first published in 1923 and is one of the first depictions of an aboriginal character in fiction. The author was raised to think of aboriginals in a more enlightened way than most in her time, and, as she says, "in order to put on record, as faithfully as possible, the heroic love and devotion of a black woman when robbed of her child".
There is an introduction to the edition I read that places this novel historically and gives some idea of just what a stir it made at the time. Martin was born on the isle of Skye and grew up in South Australia following the Highland clearances.
The book follows the character Iliapa, an aboriginal woman who went after her son when he was stolen away by a white man. Interestingly, the book was published right around the same time as the state parliament passed a law increasing the state's power over aboriginal children, including allowing them to be taken from their parents.
While still depicting some prejudices of the time, it speaks to the aboriginals as being treated with injustice by whites and having the same intellectual capacity. Definitely ahead of its time and an interesting work in the history of Australian literature.