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A review by correy_baldwin
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
3.0
I’m of two minds about this book. So much more intelligent than your average book about a sport (hockey) or about recovery from abuse (in this case, in Canada’s notorious Indian residential schools), and yet still more limited in scope than your typical literary novel.
Wagamese is a captivating storyteller and a confident writer, and it’s a real pleasure to be in his writing. He writes fiction with a journalistic hand, something that he uses to great effect, but which I also felt kept the reader at a distance. I also couldn’t help feeling somewhat cheated by the big reveal at the end, even though thematically I understand why he did it.
All in all, I would have preferred more of the nuance and depth of exploration, and character, that I tend to look for in literary fiction, but a compelling story nonetheless, and one that non-Indigenous Canadians desperately need to hear.
Wagamese is a captivating storyteller and a confident writer, and it’s a real pleasure to be in his writing. He writes fiction with a journalistic hand, something that he uses to great effect, but which I also felt kept the reader at a distance. I also couldn’t help feeling somewhat cheated by the big reveal at the end, even though thematically I understand why he did it.
All in all, I would have preferred more of the nuance and depth of exploration, and character, that I tend to look for in literary fiction, but a compelling story nonetheless, and one that non-Indigenous Canadians desperately need to hear.