Saturday, August 22, 2020

Indians on Vacation by Thomas King

Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
HarperCollins, August 2020

A funny novel about living with depression and despair.

Mimi Bull Shield, from the Blackfoot Nation in Alberta, and her husband Blackbird Mavrias, who is of Greek and Cherokee descent, travel to Europe in search of Mimi's uncle's medicine bundle. Why her Uncle Leroy ended up in Europe is a story in itself, plus there's a whole lot more going on in this hilarious novel. So much that, by the end, my heart was broken.

But let's back up to the beginning, to when Bird and Mimi have newly arrived in Prague. He is grumpy, she is full of optimism and excitement.

        I'm sweaty and sticky. My ears are still popping from the descent into Vaclav Havel. My sinuses ache. My stomach is upset. My mouth is a sewer. I roll over and bury my face in a pillow. Mimi snuggles down beside me with no regard for my distress.
        "My god," she whispers, "can it get any better?"

Years of living together have given this mismatched pair a warm understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Their relationship feels as real as the characters themselves. Their differences are a gold mine of humour.

        Mimi came home from her weekly jaunt to the thrift stores. She has a circuit that she works, much like a trapper on a trapline. 
        [...]
        For me, thrift stores are in the same category as the garbage bins behind fast-food joints. For Mimi, they're gold mines just waiting to be quarried.

It is clear from the opening chapter that something more than a reluctance to travel is bothering Bird. When they encounter an encampment of Syrian refugees, his despair comes to the forefront.

        "Are you depressed again?"
        "Just tired."
        "It's the refugees, isn't it?" says Mimi. "You don't like seeing children in distress."
        I can't imagine that anyone likes to see anyone in distress, but as soon as I think this, I remind myself that I'm wrong. For the most part, no one much cares what happens to other people, just so long as it doesn't happen to them. We have the capacity for compassion. We simply don't practise it to any degree.
        It's more an ideal that we hang on a wall where it's easy to see and almost impossible to reach.

The narrative flows back and forth in time. The present-day sections begin: "So we're in Prague," giving readers a rhythm that's easy to follow. There are no easy answers, however. As Mimi says: "The problem with human beings is that we can describe what we do. We just can't explain why."

Giller chances: HIGH - Thomas King is at the top of his storytelling game.

NOTE: I'm grateful to HarperCollins for providing a review copy.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog. 

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