The Strangers

This book follows actions portrayed in Ms. Vermette's previous novel, The Break. It follows the story of The Strangers: Elsie, Phoenix, and Cedar-Sage and Elsie's mother, Margaret. It gives some back story...but not all. Notably missing are the circumstances of Phoenix's conception and why she is incarcerated. While it is a great story on its own, readers will, I think, appreciate it more (especially the very end) if they've read The Break. Or, even if they read The Break after reading The Strangers.

Once again, we have a story about a Metis family focusing on the women: Margaret, her daughter Elsie, and Elsie's daughters Phoenix and Cedar. It is a story of family support and estrangement...sometimes by choice, but mostly because of the show more way life marginalizes Indigenous peoples and then "saves" or punishes them through the child welfare and penal systems. It is a difficult book to read as the characters are beaten down over and over again, but there is some hope. It is a testament to the importance of family and culture. The writing is sharp, doesn't pull any punches, but also conveys compassion for the characters, even when they are behaving badly. show less

I had read a Katherena Vermette book before and was interested in her new one. This follows the Stanger family by using the voice of 3 generations of the women in the Stranger family. Their stories are heartbreaking and I felt that some of the character’s lives and descriptions were a bit too long. This book could have been 50 pages shorter.

Children are apprehended for a variety of reasons and, I'd like to think, that the best interests of the children are always taken into account. At least that's the mantra that the child protection system always spouts. However, the children are often just as negatively affected as if they were left with their parents. This is a book that shows how the system affects one Metis family. There has to be a better way.

Four females from the Stranger family tell their story in the powerful novel. There's Margaret who is mother to Elsie and grandmother to Phoenix and Cedar-Sage. Margaret showed great promise as a young woman, being accepted in Law School at a time when few women and few Indigenous people made it through the acceptance process. show more Then she got pregnant by another law student who refused to marry her. Margaret, showing the rage that would become almost constant later in her life, picked up his baseball bat and attacked him. Expelled from school and pregnant she is the first, but not the last, Stranger woman to fail to achieve her potential. Elsie, sensing that Margaret doesn't love her, does find acceptance and love with her Mamere, Annie. Her grandparents big brown house is a place of safety and warmth and love not just for her but for uncles and aunts and cousins. However, Elsie repeats the tradition of becoming pregnant without a partner and has three girls with three different men. She also becomes hooked on street drugs and alcohol. After her Mamere dies and the big brown house is sold by Margaret (and her brothers) Elsie can't cope with the children. All three are apprehended but Phoenix goes to a different foster home than Cedar-Sage and Sparrow. Sparrow becomes ill and the foster mother doesn't realize it until it is too late. Sparrow dies and that completes the breakdown of the family. Phoenix is exceptionally troubled and is jailed for a violent attack that is only hinted at to the reader for most of the book. She is also pregnant and gives birth to a male whom she names Sparrow. This baby is taken from her almost at birth. Phoenix has no one on her side of the family to look after him while she is in jail so he goes to the baby's father's family and she signs papers for his adoption. Cedar-Sage is perhaps the one person who could be said to have a better life. Her father with his new wife comes back into her life and takes her to live with him. This is a man she hardly knows but he turns out to be decent and loving to her. His wife is a bit of a hard pill to swallow but Cedar learns to adapt.

The ending hints at a better future for all of the women but this is no happily-ever-after tale. It will take a lot of hard work for all of them to overcome their disadvantaged life. I know that I am rooting for them. show less

The novel focuses on four women, representing three generations, of a Métis family living in Winnipeg. Margaret is a sad, angry woman whose dreams were derailed because of a pregnancy. Her daughter Elsie has lost three children to the foster care system; she wants to be reunited with them but she is struggling with addiction. Elsie’s daughter Phoenix is incarcerated; as the novel opens she is pregnant. Cedar-Sage is Phoenix’s younger sister who has spent most of her life in foster homes but is given an opportunity to move in with her long-absent father.

The title is perfect. The family surname is Stranger, but the four women have also become strangers to each other. Margaret is a distant mother who had little time for Elsie when she show more was a child; in fact, Elsie was raised more by Margaret’s mother Annie. As a result, Elsie is disconnected from her mother, and because of her drug usage, she has lost her children. Cedar-Sage tries to connect with both Phoenix and Elsie but the behaviour of her sister and her mother make this difficult. There are also secrets and misunderstandings.

Men in the novel are not portrayed very positively. Several of the men live the criminal lifestyle, in and out of prison. Other men just disappear. Margaret has not heard from one of her sons for years, and Cedar-Sage’s father abandoned her to her mother’s care. Elsie drifts from one man to another, but most eventually disappear from her life. One who does come back into her life periodically is not a positive influence.

This is not an easy read. There are so many broken characters with broken relationships and unhappy lives. The consequences of trauma can be clearly seen in ensuing generations. The book even opens with a trigger warning: triggers “include depictions of child apprehension, solitary incarceration, suicide ideation, some drug use, and some physical violence.” Though the author adds that she did “try to cram as much love and hope in between as possible,” I found little hope. Cedar-Sage may perhaps be able to achieve what Margaret hoped to accomplish because she does have more of a support system, but the bonds she wants to forge with family members will probably not be possible. There is love, but love alone is not enough to solve the problems.

There are a lot of characters and a family tree would have been helpful. The tree that is provided is unclear; of course, I read a pre-publication galley so hopefully this problem will be rectified. Characters that appear in this novel also appear in Vermette’s debut novel, The Break. I would recommend that people first read The Break because much is explained that would clarify the reasons for people’s behaviour in The Strangers. For instance, The Strangers does not explain why Phoenix is in jail, other than “Phoenix did a horrible thing and is in jail for a long time.” We are also told that she is on the sex offenders list. Knowing Phoenix and Elsie’s backstories would be helpful.

Like The Break, this book is unflinching in its gaze at life for contemporary Indigenous women in urban Canada. It is very real and honest, often brutally so. It is not a book that readers will enjoy, though it is a book that deserves to be read.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less

I read the previous novel in this series, The Break, and really appreciated it. It was an engaging story of Métis women coming together to support one another after a terrible crime against a member of the family. The Strangers takes place in the same novelistic universe, but focuses on a different family--that of the perpetrator of the crime. It is helpful, though not necessary, to read The Break first.

While I felt really engaged in The Break I was less so with this novel, and I think it's in part because while the former centred around a particular story arc that drove the events forward, namely the crime and learning what happened and who the perpetrator was. The Strangers is more of a a somewhat meandering narrative about a group show more of women in a family and the challenges they face, sometimes overcoming them, sometimes not so much. It does follow on the events of The Break, including following one of the characters in jail, but overall I felt less engaged in the events without the kind of broader arc the earlier novel had. There wasn't as much of a central question or conflict, something to wonder about and anticipate, besides maybe one of the characters finishing their jail sentence.

I had to push my way through finishing this one, whereas with The Break it was hard to put down. There is a third book in the series, The Circle (2023), following the aftermath of the release from jail of the person who committed the crime in The Break. I may try that one later. And The Real Ones (2024) seems to also include some of the characters from the same family as The Strangers, so I suppose it's somewhat related too. show less

A story full of sorrow and hope, this novel follows the path of 4 women from one Metis family and their inter-generational and connected struggle. A beautifully written book, that emphasized the importance of family over and over.

The writing will move you.

I quite enjoyed the first book in this series but found this one touch to get through. It is a different branch of the family and while the first book had a reason the family rallies together this one was just a very sad story of a woman who couldn't keep her children due to drug addiction. I was routing for each of the children but sadly there wasn't much hope. A very bleak picture of their lives just made it a difficult read.