Home
Sundogs (Theytus 512.95)
"White men have become the rootless, the lost, and the ridiculous... I am no longer on the periphery of their world and cut off from mine; they are on the periphery of mine." -- narrator, Sundogs
Lee Maracle's novel Sundogs (Theytus) is the story of a 20-year-old East Vancouver sociology student, Marianne, who wants relief from her wrathful mother's railings at the TV news and insistence that white society is an anti-Native genocidal plot. As the only unilingual sibling of five, Marianne is the "baby" who lacks confidence in Aboriginal ways. Beset by family upheavals, racism and patriarchy, Marianne frequently' feels "tethered to the hot wire of my own rage." Over the course of one summer in Sundogs, Marianne is liberated by Elijah Harper's anti-constitutional stance and the Oka stand-off. "If Elijah upset Canada, he upset me more. His message to us was profoundly simple; we are worth fighting for, we are worth caring for, we are worthy." Marianne has an affair with her boss, an Aboriginal rights lobbyist, but rejects him when she learns he has been married. She joins a First Nations run from Penticton to Oka, collectively carrying a feather for peace and feels inspired by sundogs "impossible images reflected under extraordinary circumstances."
The novel once again shows that Maracle values her role as a leader and educator as much as her role as a writer and storyteller. Didactic asides are not really detours at all; they are necessary parts of her ongoing body of work. "I was born in Vancouver on July 2nd 1950 and raised on the North Shore mud flats about two miles east of Second Narrows Bridge," she writes in her 1975 autobiography. At 14, Maracle, became B.C.'s top high school long distance runner. Now she's in the writing business for the long haul, too. Her first book, Bobbi lee Indian Rebel {Women's Press) was a bitingly honest autobiography, published in 1975, then expanded and re-issued in 1990. It admonishes the rest of Canada to "search out the meaning of colonial robbery and figure out how you are going to undo it all." Her 1988 memoir I Am Woman (Write-On Press) synthesizes her views of the Aboriginal struggle "to climb the mountain of racism" while including poetry and photos of loved ones. It was published by her second husband Dennis Maracle, who also helped Maracle release a collection of poems, Seeds.
In 1990, Maracle's monograph from Gallerie Publications explained her resistance to European academic models. That same year she co-edited the proceedings of a 1988 conference, Telling It: Women and language Across Cultures (Press Gang) and released her first compilation of stories, Sojourner's Truth (Press Gang). Her 1992 essay for Vancouver Step magazine entitled "Goodbye Columbus" recalls that her late Métis mother worked 14 to 16 hours a day at physical labour to feed and clothe her seven children. As a follow-up to Sundogs, Maracle will release Raven's Song (Press Gang), set in the Pacific Northwest of the early 1950s. In Raven's Song, Aboriginal women are forced to choose between saving the lives of babies or elders when their community is devastated by a flu epidemic. The young protagonist, Stacey, is at odds with her mother's adherence to old customs. Circling and touching the storyline are Raven's musings, which poke fun and impart wisdom.
Sundogs 0-919441-41-6; Bobbi 0-88961-148-3; Woman 0-921576-00-5; Sojourner 0-88974.Q23-2; Raven 088974.Q44-5
[BCBW, Autumn, 1992]
Lee Maracle's novel Sundogs (Theytus) is the story of a 20-year-old East Vancouver sociology student, Marianne, who wants relief from her wrathful mother's railings at the TV news and insistence that white society is an anti-Native genocidal plot. As the only unilingual sibling of five, Marianne is the "baby" who lacks confidence in Aboriginal ways. Beset by family upheavals, racism and patriarchy, Marianne frequently' feels "tethered to the hot wire of my own rage." Over the course of one summer in Sundogs, Marianne is liberated by Elijah Harper's anti-constitutional stance and the Oka stand-off. "If Elijah upset Canada, he upset me more. His message to us was profoundly simple; we are worth fighting for, we are worth caring for, we are worthy." Marianne has an affair with her boss, an Aboriginal rights lobbyist, but rejects him when she learns he has been married. She joins a First Nations run from Penticton to Oka, collectively carrying a feather for peace and feels inspired by sundogs "impossible images reflected under extraordinary circumstances."
The novel once again shows that Maracle values her role as a leader and educator as much as her role as a writer and storyteller. Didactic asides are not really detours at all; they are necessary parts of her ongoing body of work. "I was born in Vancouver on July 2nd 1950 and raised on the North Shore mud flats about two miles east of Second Narrows Bridge," she writes in her 1975 autobiography. At 14, Maracle, became B.C.'s top high school long distance runner. Now she's in the writing business for the long haul, too. Her first book, Bobbi lee Indian Rebel {Women's Press) was a bitingly honest autobiography, published in 1975, then expanded and re-issued in 1990. It admonishes the rest of Canada to "search out the meaning of colonial robbery and figure out how you are going to undo it all." Her 1988 memoir I Am Woman (Write-On Press) synthesizes her views of the Aboriginal struggle "to climb the mountain of racism" while including poetry and photos of loved ones. It was published by her second husband Dennis Maracle, who also helped Maracle release a collection of poems, Seeds.
In 1990, Maracle's monograph from Gallerie Publications explained her resistance to European academic models. That same year she co-edited the proceedings of a 1988 conference, Telling It: Women and language Across Cultures (Press Gang) and released her first compilation of stories, Sojourner's Truth (Press Gang). Her 1992 essay for Vancouver Step magazine entitled "Goodbye Columbus" recalls that her late Métis mother worked 14 to 16 hours a day at physical labour to feed and clothe her seven children. As a follow-up to Sundogs, Maracle will release Raven's Song (Press Gang), set in the Pacific Northwest of the early 1950s. In Raven's Song, Aboriginal women are forced to choose between saving the lives of babies or elders when their community is devastated by a flu epidemic. The young protagonist, Stacey, is at odds with her mother's adherence to old customs. Circling and touching the storyline are Raven's musings, which poke fun and impart wisdom.
Sundogs 0-919441-41-6; Bobbi 0-88961-148-3; Woman 0-921576-00-5; Sojourner 0-88974.Q23-2; Raven 088974.Q44-5
[BCBW, Autumn, 1992]
Submitted on November 16, 2004 in By David.
