A review by abbie_
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

dark emotional sad medium-paced

3.75

Finished this one on Friday and it was a tough one but very necessary. With Five Little Indians, Michelle Good tells the stories of five residential school survivors, before, during and after their lives are irrevocably altered by the horrors of the Canadian institution. It’s told from the perspective of all five characters and flits around so we get to know their lives before the residential school, although the main heft of the novel is the five doing their best to live after they’ve been released into the world. It is truly disgusting how these ‘schools’ would steal young children away from families, strip them of their Indigenous heritage, often inflict unthinkable abuse, and then just cut them off once they come of age, left to struggle in the real world with no preparation or support. They do have each other, as this book highlights, and that’s all they have to cling to in a world that wants nothing to do with them. Michelle Good demonstrates how deeply trauma buries itself into the psyche of all five characters, to devastating consequences like alcoholism, mental illness, violence and even suicide. The writing is quite spare, but it grew on me quickly and I don’t think this is a topic that needs dressing up or sugarcoated.
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Difficult to swallow, but a must for understanding the horrors of Canadian residential schools.
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