Review by Booklist Review
Twenty-something Brian Waterson, the token Haudenosaunee reporter for the Niagara Cascade, routinely endures microaggressions from his editor whenever he suggests stories more nuanced than police-blotter details. When Tim Sampson, a white acquaintance from Brian's past, is brutally beaten, Brian's attempts to help Tim pull Brian back into his Rez past and his original career path as a healer. In episodic chapters (some published earlier as short stories), Brian recounts his life: growing up on the Rez, where food and money were scarce; adjusting to father figures that come and go from his life; and feeling like a perpetual outsider. Also embedded in the narrative are poems that reference treaties depicted on wampum belts (describing two boats, Indigenous and European, traveling a river on separate paths); frequent nods to Canadian rock band Rush; and black-and-white artwork invoking Rush album covers. While the enormous cast of characters makes for a somewhat confusing beginning, those who stick with this will be rewarded with a rich exploration of father-son dynamics. Adult readers will also find Gansworth's latest compelling.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Onondaga, Eel Clan author Gansworth (Apple) traces the life of a Haudenosaunee 25-year-old from early childhood to adulthood in this heartfelt epic. The novel opens in 1992 with reporter Brian Waterson, the only Native person on the Niagara Cascade staff, struggling to persuade his editors to let him report on topics other than life on the Tuscarora reservation where he grew up. When the brother of his mother's white boyfriend is hospitalized after a violent incident, Brian is drawn back to his childhood home. Thus begins a rewind to 1970, and--via six distinct parts--a forward chronology that delves further into Brian's relationship with his family, his community, and himself. As the years pass, Brian navigates racism, toxic masculinity, and an increasing disconnect with his heritage. The author's sketch-like, high-contrast artwork, featured throughout and rendered in b&w, uses Native imagery to impart eerie atmosphere, while rhythmic poem interstitials lend additional lyricism to the lush text. In this perceptive tome, Gansworth candidly offers a complex look at Brian's efforts to cultivate his own sense of self while navigating two seemingly separate identities: his life growing up in Tuscarora and his life after leaving the reservation. Ages 14--up. (Nov.)
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Review by Horn Book Review
Border-crossing is a major theme of Gansworth's (Onondaga Nation) complex novel, set on the Tuscarora Reservation. The novel itself also traverses a border: not between the U.S. and Canada but between YA and adult fiction, given its length and density, its twenty-five-year-old main character, and its mature sexual and violent themes. Extended flashbacks, however, focus on protagonist Brian's (Haudenosaunee) experience growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. Native and non-Native people alike have always looked down on him for being poor and for being a part of a family of medicine people. Now, as he's learning from the assignments he gets from his biased newspaper editor boss: "Your job is to explore the way you're different." In the early-1990s framing narrative, Brian must find out why his close friend -- a man who is almost an uncle, though not related by blood -- was beaten and left by the side of the road, a mystery connected to a handful of people who live on the reservation. This is fundamentally a story of balancing between cultures and about friendship between men. Fans of the author's work will notice characters, settings, and themes in common with his award-winning earlier YA titles (most recently Apple: Skin to the Core, rev. 11/20). Gansworth's black-and-white paintings, based on album cover art for the 1970s and 1980s classic rock band Rush, open each section with symbolic impact; an appended note discusses their role in the story and in the author's life. Lara K. AaseJanuary/February 2023 p.81 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Native son comes of age, tackling race, class, and masculinity. It's 1992, and 25-year-old Brian is the only Indigenous journalist on staff at the Niagara Cascade, a small city newspaper. After failing to successfully pitch an article on the Love Canal toxic waste dump, Brian is told to stick to his beat by writing stories about life on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation where he grew up. Pressured to report on crimes committed by Indigenous people, Brian hears via the police blotter about a man who was severely assaulted on Moon Road, the center of the Rez. Through Eee-ogg, or gossip, Brian learns that the victim was Tim, a White man who is the brother of Gihh-rhaggs, his mom's old boyfriend. No one on the Rez could understand Brian's relationship with Tim. Spanning over two decades, the novel flashes back to Brian as a boy navigating a fraught adolescence in a house without heat, electricity, or gas. Enhanced with art by Gansworth (Onondaga, Eel Clan) as well as poetry and Brian's newspaper articles, this masterwork of historical fiction asks whether peaceably straddling the realms of White and Indigenous people is possible. Rich, luxuriant, densely layered prose immerses readers in heartbreaking scenes and poignant dialogue as complex characters explore the confines and joys of male friendship. Riveting, timeless, and indispensable. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 14-adult) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
