Thomas King's collection of tongue-in-cheek short stories inspired by the lives of aboriginal peoples of Canada and the US are satirical, political,uncomfortable, and hard-to-ignore. King takes on the societal whitewashing of the world in unexpected ways. From stories of white men collecting "ind...
Gordon had been right to express his anxieties. For the guidelines had involved a principle—the principle that the American government had the right to dictate the investment and reinvestment policies, the purchasing practices, and the financial operations of Canadian companies in which Americans...
It’s about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle. I’ve heard this story many times, and each time someone tells the story, it changes. Sometimes the change is simply in the voice of the storyteller. Sometimes the change is in the details. Sometimes in the order of events. O...
THANK GOODNESS the night had been clear and the moon and stars had been out. Otherwise Sonny might have gotten lost. Dad has warned Sonny about wandering in the wilderness, and now Sonny understands what Dad was talking about, especially if you have to carry a roll of wire. Not just any wire. Cop...
I don’t have to worry about the gears or the clutch or the gas pedal, and I can concentrate on keeping the wheels on the gravel. The truck picks up speed as we come down the slope, but I’m not worried because I know it’ll slow down by itself when we hit the flat. I can see Franklin’s truck by the...
“You should have seen it,” she told her husband, when he got home that night. “A mother and four babies. Paraded right past me as if they owned the place.” Alistair Doogle wasn’t at all sure about skunks parading through the backyard. “Fred and Lucille had skunks under their deck last year,” Alis...
I know this question sounds melodramatic and absurd, but I’ve been to rallies, marches, and protests where some clever wit has shouted out from the crowd, “We should have killed all you [expletives deleted] Indians, when we had the chance.” I’d like to believe that this kind of remark is just the...