Summary
Summary
A young First Nations man sets out from his Muskoka home in a quest for redemption after a terrible fire.
In the early 1930s, Oscar Wolf, a 13-year-old Native from the Chippewas of Rama Indian Reserve, sets fire to the business section of his village north of Toronto in a fit of misguided rage against white society, inadvertently killing his grandfather and a young maid. Tortured by guilt and fearful of divine retribution, Oscar sets out on a lifetime quest for redemption.
His journey takes him to California where he works as a fruit picker and prizefighter during the Great Depression, to the Second World War where he becomes a decorated soldier, to university where he excels as a student and athlete, and to the diplomatic service in the postwar era where he causes a stir at the United Nations in New York and in Colombia and Australia.
Beset by an all-too-human knack for making doubtful choices, Oscar discovers that peace of mind is indeed hard to find in this saga of mid-20th-century aboriginal life in Canada and abroad that will appeal to readers of all backgrounds and ages.
Author Notes
James Bartleman is the bestselling author of the novel As Long as the Rivers Flow and the memoir Raisin Wine: A Boyhood in a Different Muskoka . A member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, he was lieutenant governor of Ontario from 2002 to 2007. He lives in Perth, Ontario.
Reviews (1)
Library Journal Review
In the 1930s, 13-year-old Oscar Wolf, a member of the Chippewa tribe in Ontario, sets fire to a store in an act of rage against the white world and destroys the entire business district in his small town, killing his grandfather and a young maid. As the reader follows Oscar through the next 30 years of his life, the young man seeks some sort of absolution for this deed. On the surface Oscar's life is successful. He valiantly serves in World War II, graduates from college, and becomes a member of Canada's Foreign Service. In reality, Oscar is a reincarnation of the trickster. His good deeds backfire, his bad actions haunt him, and redemption seems unlikely. VERDICT Bartleman (As Long as the Rivers Flow), like Oscar, is a member of Canada's First People and former lieutenant governor of Ontario. He portrays the daily existence of Canadian native peoples as akin to that of South Africans under apartheid. It is a grim life in which a trickster like Oscar is unlikely to provide solace or even dark humor. Thomas King's trickster novels like Green Grass Running Water are sunnier, but Bartleman's realistic novel, with its edgy verisimilitude, deserves a broad readership.-Andrea Kempf, formerly with -Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.