Celebrating Canada's 150th: January

Nothing like starting off a new year right!  This month's book is the intriguing and memorable, Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson.

Book Summary:  Monkey Beach combines both joy and tragedy in a harrowing yet restrained story of grief and survival, and of a family on the edge of heartbreak. In the first English-language novel to be published by a Haisla writer, Eden Robinson offers a rich celebration of life in the Native settlement of Kitamaat, on the coast of British Columbia. - from amazon.ca

My Thoughts:  I really enjoyed the colorful cast of characters in this engaging novel - Lisamarie and her wisecracks, her grandmother and her insight, her uncle and his activism, her father and his devotion, her brother and his single mindedness.  This novel created a vivid sense of place... and this damp west-coast fishing village is a character in its own right.

The plot line is almost an afterthought and mystery lovers who are captured by the question of what happened to Lisamarie's brother in the fishing boat (the impetus for the whole story, as Lisa spends the remainder of the book travelling alone to the site of the accident and reminiscing about their lives) will likely be disappointed by the lack of an exciting conclusion and the fairly abrupt ending to the story.

If you love a wet, west-coast setting, memorable characters as they come of age, and a realistic look at how native spirituality affects people's lives today, then you'll likely find this book well worth your time, as I did.  I loved the glimpses into the lasting effect that the residential school tragedy has in communities like Lisamarie's... this isn't the focus of the book at all, but this pain has very real implications for Lisa's generation as well, and I think that stories like hers are a very powerful witness to the ongoing trauma caused by abuse/neglect in residential schools. 

A memorable first novel by an original Canadian voice - I look forward to reading her 2nd book, Son of a Trickster, too.