Eden Robinson

Jared is a teenager living in Kitimat in northern B.C. with his native mom and her current boyfriend, Richie. Jared’s got the normal problems of teenagers — alcohol, drugs, sex, and surviving high school. Plus his mom is somewhat challenging even when she’s not drunk, or high on coke, or out of her head on meth. At least Jared has some elderly neighbours, the Jaks, that he likes. And he’s got a hobby, baking cookies. Okay, they are not your ordinary cookies, but at least gaining the show more label “Cookie Dude” by the stoner crowd is some kind of acceptance at school. And now Sarah, the Jaks’ granddaughter, has come to stay with them. Sarah is smart and sassy and beautifully weird. And if he could ignore the talking fireflies buzzing around her head, she’d be great.

Eden Robinson brings Jared and his friends entirely to life in this novel. That’s no small feat since Jared’s life will be outside the experience zone of most readers, I think. He’s funny and sensitive and sweet but life for him is especially hard. It probably doesn’t help that there are rumours that he’s not entirely human, that he’s really the offspring of the Trickster god, Wee’git. And just like that, Robinson is able to weave the mythic into her gritty realism in such a way that the reader just takes it as one more of the many things weighing down Jared’s life.

That has a double edge. Because life is hard enough without also learning that you and your mom and others are at the mercy of not-so-friendly gods and witches. If this mythic world is real — and certainly it is consistently taken as real in the novel — then it seems very unfair. Yet one hesitates to think what all this means if the mythic here is not real.

As the novel develops, Jared’s interactions with the spirit-world increase with numerous consequences. Alas, just as things are taking a turn, this novel ends. Just one of the dangers of reading something that turns out to be a trilogy. Now I’ll definitely have to track down the next two books in the series. And all of Eden Robinson’s other writings as well.

Easily recommended. show less

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 show more contents.) I look forward to reading more about Jared in the next book in the series. show less

Jared Martin is sober. It’s been almost a year. Almost a year since the events that brought [Son of a Trickster] to a close. His girlfriend, Sarah, is now his ex. Most of his friends have abandoned him. And his mother can’t stand what she perceives as his sanctimonious AA sobriety. Just as well that he is on his way out of Kitimat, headed to Vancouver and college. He’ll make new friends and, if necessary, connect with other relations such as his aunt, Mavis Moody, even though his show more mother hates her sister. What Jared doesn’t expect is his newfound connection to the otherworldly. For example, he sees ghosts, well mostly just one ghost in a bathrobe who always wants to watch Dr Who on the Sci-Fi channel. Oh, and there’s something creepy living in the wall of his bedroom.

Although the opening of this second volume of this proposed trilogy is a bit awkward — inevitably Robinson has to open out Jared’s world with individuals we’ve not yet come across even though they appear to be relatives — once the story gets going, it is fully engrossing. She has a real flair for Jared’s unique voice and his sanguine approach to frankly freaky situations. Not that he has escaped his past. His mother’s crazy ex-boyfriend, David, is stalking him, and magic keeps edging closer and closer.

Of course some of what shows up in the middle novel of a trilogy, of necessity, is bridging material to get us to the final volume. But there is enough real interaction between characters here to ensure this novel satisfies on its own terms. Aunt Mave is a wonderfully eccentric character and Jared’s cousin and fellow participant at AA, Kota, is both complex and poignant. Plus there are plenty of opportunities for Jared’s sparky verbal jousts which are a treat. I enjoyed it all.

Recommended. show less

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 show more 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 show less