A review by emjay2021
Medicine River by Thomas King

4.0

I will be using this as a required text in my First Peoples English course (it's being offered for the first time in January! Yikes!). Medicine River is a quiet novel; at first glance it's just a series of anecdotes about the narrator, Will, and his family and friends. It seems at first like not much happens (see some of the very disappointed reviews of this book on Goodreads!), but I think it is actually a powerful meditation on many themes pertaining to contemporary Aboriginal life in Canada: identity, tradition, sovereignty, the legacy of colonialism. It also has plenty to say in general about friendship, families, and romantic love. Of course, Thomas King's excellent writing and dry, subtle wit are reason alone to read it.

I chose Medicine River as my assigned text before King's Governor General Award was announced, so I feel pretty prescient!