![]() ![]() ![]() We watched the silvery, brown flash as they flopped out on the bank, their puckered mouths flapping like wet kisses from fat aunties, their tails flipping and slapping against the ground. We lowered the sacks into the water and pulled them up dripping and filled with fish. So much life, so much desperation, so much energy. ![]() We could see the fish pushing up that water. Mercifully, he brings it to us in tiny moments both direct and subtle, such as when a group of children escape the school for an afternoon at the creek. First, Wagamese does not shy away from the savage events so many suffered in institutions designed to remove the “savage” from Indian children. They keep company with Cynthia Ozick’s “The Shawl” and Tadeusz Borowski’s “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman” in reminding us that humans possess an astounding capacity for cruelty. ![]() Stories of Indian boarding schools in the United States and Canada-whether in memoir or fiction-are uniformly heartrending. I’ve learned that sometimes these revelations reach off the page and hurt you deep in your soul. The cover art of a quiet, snowy landscape with barn-like buildings on the horizon hinted at a disquieting undertow that promised dark revelations. As an avid reader of Native American* literature, I held Richard Wagamese’s slender novel, Indian Horse, between my fingers longer than I do most before cracking it open. ![]()
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