From the accomplished memoirist and former Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario comes a first novel of incredible heart and spirit for every Canadian.
The novel follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is "stolen" from her family at the age of six and flown far away to residential school. She doesn't speak English but is punished for speaking her native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also "fed" to the school's attendant priest with an attraction to little girls.
Ten long years later, Martha finds her way home again, barely able to speak her native tongue. The memories of abuse at the residential school are so strong that she tries to drown her feelings in drink, and when she gives birth to her beloved son, Spider, he is taken away by Children's Aid to Toronto. In time, she has a baby girl, Raven, whom she decides to leave in the care of her mother while she braves the bewildering strangeness of the big city to find her son and bring him home.
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
βAs Long as the Rivers Flow __ casts an unflinching eye on the self-destruction that often befalls residential school survivors and their children. . . . Impressive.β
_β Quill & Quire
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βAn extremely poignant novel that exposes the short-term and long-term damage of the residential school system. James Bartleman has skillfully illustrated an unpleasant but inescapable episode in Canadian and Native history and deserves recognition for shedding necessary light into the darkness.β
β Drew Hayden Taylor, author of Motorcycles and Sweetgrass
βJames Bartleman combines the expertise of well-informed non-fiction with the compelling elements of fiction to tell a devastating, inspiring story. Only someone extremely well-informed and compassionate could have written it. My first teaching assignments thirty years ago were in Oji-Cree communities around James Bay. If only Iβd had this novel to read then. It let me walk a mile in Marthaβs moccasins, and her tracks remain on my heart. If youβre only going to read one book to glimpse what itβs been like to be Aboriginal in this country, this novel should be the one.β
β Anne Laurel Carter, author of The Shepherdβs Granddaughter and Last Chance Bay
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
JAMES BARTLEMAN rose from humble circumstances in Port Carling, Ontario, to become Foreign Policy Advisor to the right PM ChrΓ©tien in 1994. After a distinguished career of more than thirty-five years in the Canadian foreign service, in 2002 he became the first Native Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario. He is the author of the prize-winning memoir Out of Muskoka .
From the Hardcover edition.