A review by likeaduck
Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway

4.0

Tomson Highway's first novel, a story of two Cree brothers from northern Manitoba who are sent to residential school and subsequently to high school in Winnipeg before eventually forging careers in the arts while navigating the fallout from their experiences at the school, their relationships with religion and each other's lifestyles, and the business of life and death. The writing is beautiful: the feel of childhood and family stories distorted and mythologised by frequent retellings is lovely, and the incorporation of mystical figures, dreams, and events into the usually-mundane run of modern life is very elegantly done. The first two-thirds of the book are great, though the narrative focus seems to waver toward the end and the book is not nearly as tightly woven in its ending as in its beginning. (Also very tragic, which I suppose is unavoidable as the book is, to my understanding, somewhat based on real events.)