The Pious Robber by Harriet Richards Published by Thistledown Press Review by Justin Dittrick $18.95 ISBN 978-1-927068-18-2 Harriet Richards’ The Pious Robber presents its readers with eight stories that will mesmerize, disturb, and delight. Every story in the collection strikes to the bone, and is brilliantly conceived and beautifully realized. One will be tempted to read the collection in one sitting, though the depth of the stories provides much fruit for multiple readings, honest reflection, and some animated and imaginative discussion. Richards is blessed with an unimpeachable understanding of illness, childhood, family, loss, and human psychology. Her narration is cool and detached, her dialogue crisp and seamless. This work is weighty and balanced: highly observant, darkly comic, and always fascinating. This collection especially shines where it examines human frailty within the accepted boundaries that mark convention, produce (unwanted?) self-knowledge, and touch that squishy place in our psyche where we are most vulnerable and recriminatory. There are plenty of cringe-worthy moments in the stories “Tangible Reminders” and “Sometimes it Seemed”. These seem to be the moments in which intelligent people must work with the seemingly harmless social and cultural excesses that make day-to-day life a minefield. In “Tangible Reminders”, the main…
First in Canada: An Aboriginal Book of Days by Jonathan Anuik Published by Canadian Plains Research Center Press Review by Chris Ewing-Weisz $24.95 978-088977-240-3 Every schoolchild has heard of La Vérendrye, but how many know the name of the Cree guide who made the canoe route map he relied on? We all know about the Plains of Abraham and Sir John A. Macdonald, but how many of us know about the numbered treaties, or when Native Canadians got the vote? Jonathan Anuik’s sumptuously illustrated, made-for-browsing book brings a hidden history to light. Hundreds of intriguing facts, arranged by date, alternate with photographs and short writeups about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people across Canada, from earliest prehistory to the present. First in Canada celebrates Native achievements in every field: art, literature, music, architecture, politics, medicine, sports, religion, theatre, education, and more. Also noted are the darker elements of our shared history: conflicts from the North West Rebellion to Oka; Richard Cardinal’s suicide and David Marshall’s wrongful imprisonment; the long and tangled history of legislation and activism attempting to sort out the relationship between Native and more recently arrived Canadians. Many items are only briefly noted; readers will want to turn…