Eden RobinsonBesprekingen

Son of a Trickster is by Indigenous Canadian author Eden Robinson. It is an intense coming-of-age story about Jared who at 16 has a lot to deal with. A broken family, a dead beat father, social pressures, drugs, alcohol, poverty and a slightly insane mother. Throughout the story the author has interwoven a First Nations myth about the trickster, Wee’jit.

Set in Kitimat, B.C. this is a dark story. Drug abuse and alcoholism are the driving force in both Jared’s father and mother’s lives. The author does insert plenty of humor, but it is hard to ignore the fact that Jared is more responsible that either of his parents but his life appears to be heading much the same way as theirs. His rough life is not unusual among the Indigenous of Canada and the author’s inclusion of the folklore and magical elements help in our understanding of the culture but do nothing to lighten the story.

Son of a Trickster is built around the character of Jared and he is someone that I could really root for. Yes, he drinks, uses drugs and makes money by baking pot cookies but he is generous to others, thoughtful and caring and his close relationship with his mother was endearing. Although there was very little resolution to the story, I understand that this is the first of a trilogy and so the story will continue on. Son of a Trickster works at giving a voice to the Canadian First Nations and the author is to be applauded to painting such a strong and vivid picture.

Too much weirdness and magic in this one so I did no enjoy this as much as the other two.½

Liked Trickster Drift even more than the first book. Watching Jared start to really embrace becoming an adult and still holding on to his kindness of being young.

The magic and background story telling of the other worldly creatures is amazing. I'd love to read a book about Shu or one about Dent.

I'm so glad this is going to be a trilogy. Can't wait for the next installment.

I think this is a 5-star read, not just this volume but the entire trilogy, but I had to take a star because I spent about 75% of this book trying to unravel all the relationships and remember all the stuff that went before. The story just launches in, picking up pretty much where the previous book left off (I think), and while I'm generally not a fan of a lot of backfill exposition in series, it has been a good long while since I read the earlier books, so I was a bit in the dark. At about that 75% mark, there was a handy scene where a new character walks into the family group and requires introductions, which includes the relationships, so a bunch of it became clear at that point. I think part of that star also had be taken for the extreme, cruel violence that occurs in a couple places, which wasn't gratuitous, exactly, but pretty hard to read. As Jared feels his way through a conflict he caused by banishing a big bad supernatural being, battling his own feelings of guilt for putting everyone he loves in jeopardy as a result, and trying to quell the tide of his own addiction (he's a Trickster, but he's also a drug addict), I found myself wondering whether he would survive, and whether his death would actually be what was needed in order to finish the whole thing. I think this question was fueled by the narrative in places, as Jared himself wonders whether he needs to continue being on the earth. The only thing keeping him there, at times, is the faint hope that he will be able to conquer the forces of evil and bring safety and security to his loved ones (despite everyone around him reassuring him that he is just a weak baby Trickster who couldn't save a fly from a spider's web). No spoilers here, but I will say the series ends in a satisfying way, even if the "Epilogue-ish" feels a little perfunctory.

After barely getting out of Kitimat alive, Jared heads to Vancouver to get a break from his life, which seems to be spiraling out of control. The supernatural keeps encroaching in his already chaotic life, adding a dimension he neither wants nor knows how to deal with. In Vancouver he reluctantly moves in with his aunt Mave, who appears blissfully unaware of all the magical elements that occupy her apartment. Jared gets caught up in family and community, starts his classes at BCIT, and tries to live a normal life—as normal as it can be while trying to stay sober and avoiding his sadistic stalker. But, just as everyone around him has been warning him, the supernatural, which he has been dabbling in without even knowing it, catches up to him, and by the end of the story it is pretty clear his life will never be the same again. I love this story because the characters are so vivid, utterly believable and real, like they could be my own neighbours. Jared is an incredibly strong and resourceful kid, making his way through a complicated and often unforgiving life. I look forward to the final volume of this trilogy, as Jared applies his natural resiliency to a whole new set of circumstances.

I heard Eden Robinson on the radio talking about her newly-released sequel (or prequel) to this book, so I thought I’d pick it up. This is almost like a kind of urban fantasy—Canadian style. Jared is 16 and parties hard in his northern BC town. His mother parties even harder and runs alarmingly, explosively hot and cold. Jared has had supernatural encounters since childhood but doesn’t have the vocabulary to articulate or understand them, so he chalks them up to hangovers and bad drug trips. The first part of this book is filled with partying, family drama, and a budding love affair—all the things you’d expect from a novel about a teenage kid. But when the supernatural invades to the point where other humans (or what Jared always believed were humans—need to intervene, the story gets really weird. But this is an entirely human story, showing that even people who have the spirits in their sights can fall off the rails. I look forward to reading more of this series.

I'm in British Columbia for a work conference so I'll write a review when I'm back in Ontario at my desk, but I loved this book a lot.

An interesting book, first in a trilogy, that is nothing like what you expect. Or at least nothing like what I expected, going in. The characters are interesting, and surprisingly complex as you find out more about them. I was expecting a fantasy plot, but fantasy only really figures into the last third of the book or so. I think the hardest thing to adapt to in the book was the way the author, Eden Robinson, addresses time - or rather, does not address time. It can be difficult to tell how much time has passed between chapters, or when something is a sudden flashback or time jump. I struggled with that for about three chapters, and then I caught on to the way Robinson is writing. Beyond that, the book grabs you quite well, and despite it being completely unlike what I thought it was going to be, it was a fantastic and refreshing read. Very excited to read the rest of the trilogy.

When they start putting trigger warnings on books, this one will need several. There's a lot of raw unpleasantness here and honestly, for the first third of the book I felt like the author was trying to prove how "hard" she was. By the time I was finished, I appreciated the not nice-ness as necessary to the story and really got into the characters. But its prose is very sparse and I would have liked more in some places where this "less is more" philosophy seems to hamper my understanding of what's happening between the characters. Also, I would have liked more talking crows.

A big fat thank you to whatever publisher it was who sent me this free copy for review.

Really appreciated this book and the opportunity to learn about local Indigenous life experiences and worldviews, especially the impact of residential schools and other colonial policies in creating poverty and addiction. I also enjoyed reading it - it is very well written and engaging.

I wasn't expecting to like this very much (read for book group) but the first few chapters stoked my enthusiasm with the protagonist's organs crawling around independently and the promise of a shapeshifting supernatural hayride with ghosts, cannibal ogres, other dimensions and magical weirdness of every flavour.

But as soon as Jared (a name I just can't get along with, sorry) arrives in Vancouver, the plot bogs down in a confusing series of shared meals with extended family/friends. We're unfailingly kept up to date on who's baking what and what's for breakfast or in the slow cooker and whether it's coffee or tea to drink. I was just about able to keep the central core of characters straight in my mind — his mother, his aunt, his gran (or two grans?), his ex-girlfriend — but in the second half a whole new cast shows up — Eliza, Olive, Justice, Hank, Bob the Octopus — with hardly a hint of introduction. Look, I get it, I can't expect to jump into book III of a trilogy and know who everyone is, but this was confusing as hell, and the confusion was only amplified by our hero's habit of randomly losing and regaining consciousness.

There's one exciting sequence about a third of the way through but even there, I felt Robinson could have made much more of the gruesome torture method she came up with. I'm a total wuss when it comes to torture scenes but I hardly flinched at this one.

Then it's more communal dining (including a recipe for vegan meringues — great!) and repeated references to the status of the "teakettle" (does anyone actually call it that?) while the gang discuss in the vaguest terms the trouble they're in (Jared's other aunt the ogress operating from a distance). Just hanging out really. I'm sure it's great if you've enjoyed the first two books and have some idea who the hell these people are. But I could have used some action. And the climax, when it finally comes, is a massive let-down. I wish there'd been more shapeshifting and general anarchy and tricksterishness and less bleary teen moping and tea drinking. For example there was some sort of otter woman who I'd have liked to see throw down, and a pair of twins who I think were otters too? I did like the Wild Man of the Woods though, and it's always nice to read a story set in Vancouver.½

Lisa’s brother, Jimmy, has gone missing. The fishing boat on which he was serving as a deckhand has sunk and its whereabouts are unknown. The book begins with the family preparing to go look for him, and it weaves its way back and forth from the past to the present as Lisa explores her childhood and teenage memories. The story is set in Kitamaat, not to be confused with Kitimat, and Lisa and her family are Haisla. This book is a rich introduction to Haisla culture, particularly the language and the food, and all of the characters leap off the page. I especially loved Ma-ma-oo and her independence, and the relationship between Lisa’s parents and how they related to their children. This was an excellent book, and I definitely recommend it if you’re looking to try Eden Robinson’s work but don’t want to commit to a trilogy.

A third of the way through Monkey Beach, I felt like I forgot how to read. You know when you get anxious and start to question whether you know how to breathe? It was like that, but cultural.

As of this writing, I know that this is because Eden Robinson’s writing is excellent. She reels us in on the first page with Lisamarie’s description of the interminable waiting for news of her missing brother, Jimmy. The story itself takes place in the present, and she uses digression into the past to stitch together the numerous story lines that brought her home to Kitimat, BC, and put her brother on a fishing boat off the coast. She has this way of talking about both beautiful and horrible things without ever explicitly describing them with words.

I think it is that ability that made me question whether I understood the book. The early part of the novel are stories from Lisa’s childhood, which brought to mind growing up in the 80s with my cousin, whose mom was Tsimshian. Her dad (my uncle), like me, was white. I was told that they couldn’t get married because my aunt would lose her Indian status. That was just the beginning of the ways that my cousin’s and my lives were inherently different. So, as I read, I was simultaneously aware of knowing my cousin, but not knowing her life; getting the words, but not getting the book.

In my frustration, I wanted to reduce it to an excessively expository narrative with a disordered storyline that didn’t always move the plot forward. But I had this feeling that Robinson was being intentional with her style. Why though?

By the end, I was no closer to the answer. I did not know what Eden Robinson meant by this book. I mentioned my frustration to a friend and she pointed to me to this lecture (https://archive.org/details/podcast_big-ideas-audio_nick-mount-on-eden-robinsons_1000339542491) by U of T professor Nick Mount that made me realize that the Monkey Beach may be written in English, but it isn’t English literature. It seems so obvious now, but the story is bound up in the Haisla cultural traditions and the history of Indigenous oppression in Canada. Therefor, it’s analysis must include these perspectives. Mount says:

“[Lisa] is giving us her story out of order and in pieces because that is the state in which her history has been left by the residential school system [. . .] By making the plot difficult to follow, by making the lessons difficult to read, what Robinson is doing is making the reader undergo the same experience that the Native has had to go through of reconstructing the past from fragments.”

And that is how, in 57 minutes, I went from not getting it to partway through Robinson’s book of short stories called Traplines. I recommend them both. 5/5 stars.

Umm, this was a strange one, interesting enough to keep me reading.

Basically, it is a circular story of a Haisla girl coming of age, intertwined with a passing of age.

You'll find in it what I thought well executed youthful angst, rebelliousness, impetuousness, and naïveness, portrayed with imagination bordering on bizarre because life can be perplexingly boring.

Any more than that I'll leave you to ponder in reading the book.

Jared is back. And so are all of the characters we know and love (or fear). Most welcome is the return of Sarah, sans fireflies, but still thoroughly entwined in Jared’s heart. Maggie, his mom, is still Maggie. But there are also new characters and an even wider canvas for Robinson to work on. And there is a lot of work to do because the ogress, Georgina, isn’t through with Jared yet even though she is currently trapped in an alternate universe. Her minions, the coy wolves, are busy working to bring her back, which they will manage even if it requires killing every single person Jared loves or cares about. Now would be the perfect time for him to go on a bender, wouldn’t it? Bad choices are bad choices are bad choices. Fortunately Jared has so many people who love him and who are willing to do what it takes to save him that the final battle, when it comes, could be rather apocalyptic.

Eden Robinson offers a pacy conclusion to her Trickster trilogy. It is busy and involved and, if you’ve been waiting two years for it to arrive, you might be wise to go back and reread Trickster Drift before jumping straight into this. Otherwise it can be a bit confusing trying to keep everything straight, at least at first. But still a satisfying adventure.

Enjoy!½

I found this an engaging read. It would be easy to stereotype Jared as a stoner and a burnout, but he has a strong core of compassion and sense of duty, looking after his dad and stepsister financially and helping his elderly neighbours with chores. I liked the juxtaposition of the fantastical elements with the mundane details of being a teenager. And I especially liked the Doctor Who marathon some of the characters have at one point. (This definitely caught my attention in the table of contents.) I look forward to reading more about Jared in the next book in the series.½

Loved the pace and the timeline shifts. A good example of 'show not tell' and a complex natural and human environment. Very poignant. And not quite resolved in a very satisfying way. I had never heard of it before I picked it off the shelf for it's intriguing cover but I'm not surprised at all that it has been a set text for other reviewers.

I had to read this as it will be a CW show coming up soon! I did like the subtle nod to another CW show, Supernatural, in this book, as I was sensing a bit of influence there. I think this story will fit right along. I would NOT say this is a young adult novel, even though the main character is a teenager. This book is fierce, brutal, real. Maybe I don't know YA books anymore, but I'm wondering who the target audience is for this. Sometimes the characters are a little too real and spicy. NO Jared's mom does NOT kiss her mother with that mouth as her mother is the one being targeted with the name calling. Irrational mothers are tough. But there is a bit here to appreciate about Jared's mom - just as long as you aren't the one living with her. I feel like the book ends just as the supernatural stuff begins... most of the book is Jared's difficult teenage life of taking care of everyone else when not partying and that gets a slight bit repetitive. But your heart never stops bleeding empathy for Jared from the first page. This kid could be so responsible if he gets away from these bonehead adults. But Robinson does a great job balancing the Native culture/ supernatural/ teenage hijinks and making it seem like a natural fit in a very real way. Robinson is good. Looking forward to the remainder of the trilogy and the show and definitely whatever else Robinson wants to write.½

The paranormal was introduced at the end of the first book, but it has a starring role in this book. Believe it or let it be part of the fiction, either way this book is pretty intense with drama and sh*t in Jared's life, like the first except different drama and a (mostly) new cast of characters. It is easy to see why this is a tv show -- limited cast of characters who are all quirky and colourful with their own baggage and most of the scenes take place in the apartment or random streets. Spooky ghosts are straightforward to CGI, and there you have the book on screen. Very readable in terms of the writing, and it pulled me through again, even though I couldn't relate (thankfully).

This is not the Thomas King trickster I was expecting! King's Coyote trickster is ironic/satirical and mischievous, and the King quotation at the start led me to believe it was this kind of trickster. Instead, it's the more West Coast trickster, more evil in intentions that comes out in the final third of the book. While that switch is fine, and I can read a book with that kind of magic/witchery, it was unexpected and a bit of a swerve. I didn't relate to all the drugs and drinking and violence of the pre-spirits part of the book, but I was very intrigued and curious to know where it would go. The writing and the wit of the dialogue kept me captivated. I like the characters who are real and flawed but interesting. When the spirits come, I have a harder time envisioning or relating to the plot, but it's still intriguing enough that I'll at least read #2. This book does feel like an introduction, a scene-setting for a bigger story, so I'm interested to see where it goes from here.

This is a very raw book. Robinson has a very sparse style, never a word extra, and a gift for character and dialogue. Every character feels like she’s genuinely pulled them from real life, even the teens, and a lot of the scenes and situations do too. She does not stint on dealing with things like poverty, abuse, and drugs. At all.

This is probably the most baldly realistic book I’ve read in a while, possibly forever, and that’s with the grace notes of magic threaded through it. (Is First Nations magic realism a thing? It is now.) It also has the slow, wry narrative style I’m familiar with from Native legends, where things kind of just happen, what’re you gonna do, and that works really well for this story too.

My biggest issue? When she writes people texting, she uses the abbreviated textspeak stuff (l8r, etc.) which felt less accurate to me than the rest of it.

Warnings: Drug and alcohol abuse. Child neglect and abuse. Implied spousal abuse. Dog dies in the first chapter. Side character attempts suicide and self-harm.

8/10

While I didn’t like this as much as the first one, I think it’s my usual sequel/middle-of-a-trilogy problem more than anything. You know, how the second book isn’t nearly as shiny because you know how the writer and world operate now? How the second in a trilogy often picks up in the middle and ends in the middle and doesn’t quite give you resolution? Yeah.

The writing’s about the same, from what I remember, though the story’s less raw because Jared’s gotten away from the substance abuse and dysfunctional home life that made it so. He’s still a jerk, still unlearning things, still messed up by his childhood and confused in a believably seventeen-year-old way and not dealing very well with the whole magic thing at all—so there’s plenty of mouthing off and doing dumb things and moments when he slips back into old patterns. I enjoyed how much he’d grown since the first book, and watching him grow more in this one, but that gut-wrenching “oh gods no what happens now” feeling I remember from Son of a Trickster wasn’t there.

There’s more humour, too, mostly in the form of absolutely wacky characters. A dance instructor who used to babysit him, a five-year-old with a fixation on Frozen and her cheeky ghostly follower, the twin gamers who show up anywhere there’s free food, his highly intense writer-activist aunt, and more…. Watching them all bounce off Jared, and each other, was wonderful, and I hope some of them come back because they were fun.

The story’s very subtle, though, which I never deal with well while I’m in the thick of it. Like, for most of it, all I saw was Jared going about daily life and helping people and going to school and freaking out over ghosts, with brief moments of “look, there’s a problem here,” and some of the magical stuff near the end was very sudden for me. But like with Son of a Trickster, once I got to the end and looked back, things gelled. To sum up: Robinson is essentially updating Heiltsuk mythology for the 21st century, specifically the Raven cycle, but not playing by Western literary rules to do so. I think I’m missing a lot of the details of what exactly she’s doing because I’m white and largely familiar with other Raven traditions (mostly Haida), but I still think what she’s doing is cool.

And then the climax happened and Robinson doubled down on the magical everything. Shit got real. Fast. And bad. I’m going to have to read the third book just to be sure Jared’s okay in the end.

So … I don’t know if I can rec this book specifically, because it starts too much in the middle of everything and it left me just a bit too ambivalent, but I did like it and I certainly recommend the trilogy.

Warnings: Stalking. Addiction, drug use, and alcoholism. Depression. Mentions of self-harm and residential schools. Seriously terrible driving. Awkward moments with professors.

7/10

It's propulsive, it's compelling, it kept me up late and it made me wake up early to finish reading. The characters are brilliantly drawn, flawed, human (even the ones that aren't technically human...), and the story is plainly told. I can't wait to read the sequel.

That was definitely a cliffhanger ending. I hope we're not waiting for book 3 for too long.

Poor Jared. He's trying so hard to be a normal, productive, boring member of regular society, and yet every event conspires to make him more magical and powerful.

The characters are incredible (literary novels could be written about each of them and they'd be fully compelling with or without magic), the dialogue is gorgeous, the magic is incredible, and the story is just perfection.