I’m glad I picked this one up at the library instead of spending my hard-earned $32.95 on it.

I know this is supposed to be a spirited tale of redemption, but it just felt tragic and sad. Maybe I’m missing something, since it garnered such strong reviews.

It’s not that I don’t recognize the atrocities visited on our First Nations people by self-serving missionaries and government-types. I’ve read a good chunk of Farley Mowat’s corpus, and understand that theme too well. I guess I just don’t see the redemption in the ending.

On the positive side, the prose is beautiful to read. The story’s well paced, and the sustained metaphor of music is well threaded through the tale. I just didn’t buy Highway’s conclusions.

Thanks to Cathy Lachine for recommending this one.

Highway, Tomson. Kiss of the Fur Queen. Doubleday Canada, 1998.