Full disclosure: I ADORE Eden Robinson.
I was her publicist at McClelland & Stewart when they published Blood Sports, and it was the most fun I ever had at work without being formally reprimanded. On one mild winter day, we found ourselves tramping through an abandoned building in downtown Toronto with a photographer from the Globe and Mail. He had suggested the location because he wanted authentic urban decay for the photo shoot. I held her coat while Eden good-naturedly picked her way through the rubble and posed amid debris and broken glass. She somehow managed to look both incredibly glamorous and fiercely dangerous. The entire time she cracked jokes and laughed loudly--Eden has the best laugh in the business. Needless to say, the author photo that accompanied the Globe review was stunning.
Son of a Trickster is her first novel since Blood Sports came out in 2006. The new novel has many of the character-types and themes that fans of Robinson have come to expect--Indigenous youth trying to make emotional connections and do the right thing while living chaotic lives, where poverty, alcohol, drugs and violence are ever present to derail their hopes and ambitions. Although the tone is dark and there are numerous violent incidents, Son of a Trickster doesn't have the extremely graphic violence of Blood Sports. True Story: While preparing for Blood Sports' launch party, an intern and I gleefully drizzled bright red nail polish on the invitations to simulate random blood spatter.
The protagonist in Son of a Trickster is Jared: 16 years old and coping with his mother who swears vigorously and is prone to unexpected acts of physical violence; her drug-dealer boyfriend Richie; Jared's dead-beat father, stepmother and stepsister; a new girlfriend; and the usual collection of high-school jocks, goths, and geeks. He parties too much, makes some extra money baking and selling pot cookies, and has a tendency to mouth off more than is considered healthy. But he is intelligent, kind and generous; and he tries to protect anyone weaker than himself, in spite of his mother's constant reminders that "The world is hard. You have to be harder." To add to his troubles, his maternal grandmother will have nothing to do with him because she thinks he is a Trickster; ravens sometimes talk to him; he doesn't always recognize his own inner voice; and he's being stalked by an elderly Native woman in a burgundy Cadillac. There's definitely a lot going on in Jared's life.
As Jared tries to navigate the contemporary world of Walking Dead marathons, Idle No More protests, and his dangerously messed-up family, he is also forced to acknowledge the indigenous spirit world and his place in it.
Eden weaves together the various strands of her novel in such a way that the gritty realism and the supernatural seem equally plausible, and it is all held together by her wonderful wit and quirky humour. It is also a tale that speaks to our need for national reconciliation. Throughout the novel there are references to the harms committed through government policies hostile to Indigenous peoples and culture: the residential schools, the spread of Tuberculosis, the loss of Indigenous languages, and the damage done to the natural world. Just as Jared must face his ancestral legacy and reconcile it with his modern world; we, as a country, need to address our colonial past and negotiate a new partnership with our Indigenous populations.
Whether you read it as an allegory for reconciliation, a coming of age tale, or a witty exploration of contemporary culture, Son of a Trickster will not disappoint.
Four and a half smileys out of five. 😀😀😀😀😶
For those in the Charlottetown area, Eden Robinson will be reading at the Winter Tales Author Reading Series on March 13th, 2017. It will be a wonderful opportunity to hear her read, and if we're lucky hear her laugh--did I mention she has the best laugh in the business?
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