In a writing style infused with freshness and grace, Boyden creates the world of a native reserve in Northern Ontario where a young woman falls in love with a wolf, a boy enters the pro-wrestling ring and takes on the defending champion, and the town nerd learns how the literally escape his own ugly skin, while stray dogs and ravens screw with a hundred-year-old man. The Ojibwa and Cree in these stories might not be what you expect, whether it is a lead singer for an all-girl punk band or a desperado named Painted Tongue. Somehow even lives spent trapping out in the bush of Northern Ontario or hustling on the teeming streets of big-city Toronto reveal the grit and beauty of a bigger everyday.
The stories in this collection travel the four direction: East brings Labour and three different women who work and share the pain of children; South conjures Ruin, travel and self-destruction. West gives us Running, water and dams and kids who leave. North is Home.
Boyden's Northern Ontario reserves are pocked with poverty, redemption, violence, and humour. These are not fragile people. They've been here ten thousand years. They survive.
