17, 4pm at the Whistler Writers Festival online, which runs Oct. Michelle Good is appearing in the Writers of Fiction event, Sat. Five Little Indians is a heart-wrenching and heart-warming read, and one that will likely stay with readers long after they’ve turned the last page. She has fictionalized and humanized something that, perhaps for many people, seems so unbelievable that it’s hard to relate to, and to understand. In interviews, Good explains that one of the reasons she wrote this book was to open up conversations about the trauma people suffered at these institutions and its ongoing ramifications. The spare prose gives the novel a simplistic quality for a topic that’s incredibly intricate, which makes it digestible without losing any sense of the issues she’s illuminating.
Without shying away from the truth, Good writes the character’s stories with a sense of light and hope. With a scream, she threw the rock through the lobby of the Manitou, and then raced away into the night.”Įscape-artist Kenny never finds a sense of place, Howie grapples with uncontrollable anger, Maisie internalizes the pain of sexual abuse, Lucy uncovers an inner strength and determination, and Clara reconnects with her lost heritage in order to regain a sense of self. She leapt up from the bench and ran across the parking lot, the rock rising high above her head. “Lily’s face seemed to hover in the air in front of Clara, soaking and shivering on that bench, and once again the anger rose up in her. Through her words, we find ourselves in the shoes of these survivors, delving into their individual and interlacing stories, understanding why they make the choices they do. As a daughter and granddaughter of people who went through the residential school system, Good tells this story with compassion and insight, with relatable characters who you feel and root for.Īlthough the subject matter is inherently dark, Good opens a window into the human cost of colonialism without judgment. Even though it made my stomach tighten when I looked at her and thought of Father, I couldn’t help but think, in spite of it all, we were here.”įive Little Indians is the debut novel by poet, lawyer and political activist Michelle Good, and a member of Saskatchewan’s Red Pheasant Cree Nation. “Indian School seemed like a hundred years ago, but with Lucy in my living room, it seemed like yesterday.
We join them as they try to deal with years of neglect and trauma in a world that has no place for them, never mind any understanding.
From their prison-like residential school on Vancouver Island, they are turfed onto the streets of Vancouver with no support, money, family connections or life skills. Five Little Indians follows the lives of five young adults as they grapple with life after ‘Indian School’ in the 1960s.
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