Kiss of the Fur Queen (Hardcover)

by Tomson Highway (Author) "Mush!" the hunter cried into the wind..." (more)
Key Phrases: caribou hunter, young caribou, reindeer moss, Abraham Okimasis, Gabriel Okimasis, Fur Queen (more...)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Canada, Limited; 1St Edition edition (1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385256523
• ISBN-13: 978-0385256520
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,180,635 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #7 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( H ) > Highway, Tomson
  #95 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Canadian > Native Literature

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars surprising, emotional combination of idyl & sadness, December 2, 1998

By	[e-mail] (toronto, canada) - See all my reviews

I recommend this book highly. It successfully descibes the idyllic childhood of two brothers, and how this childhood, and a Canadian aboriginal culture's attempt to adapt on its own terms to Euiropean-based culture are heartlessly ended by forced assimilation, land expropriation, and horrifying abuse. The story follows the two brothers from conception in the 1950s into their 30s in the 1980s. Once they leave home to go to a religious residential school, the tone of the story is of an ever-returning, inescapable sadness, which nothing--not flamboyance, not artistic creation, not sex, not consciousness-altering substances, not numbness, not attempting to reintegrate into aboriginal culture, not helping children of the next generation--can allay. The book had a powerful effect on me. I'm not sure whether or not it is a masterpiece, and thus deserving of 5 stars. Much of what it was telling me was so surprising, so shocking, or so emotional, that on first reading, I am unable to look at the book with enough detachment to make that call. Read it and see what you think.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like slipping into a warm bath, November 11, 1998

By A Customer

Kiss of the Fur Queen is a marvelous first novel by a poet and playwrite of lyrical talent. As an admirer of the native arts I had my first introduction to Tomson Highway at the Stein Valley festival in BC. He performed a recitation of a play that rung a true chord. Having lived in Northern Canada for ten years and "down south" for three, his reading brought the north back to me. His novel has now done that ten fold. Simply by using the mood language of his culture I was transported back to the north and to the feelings of acceptance I always experienced there. Tomson Highway has the ability to translate into words, the feeling of living in the north, even though only a portion of the novel is set there. A truly enjoyable read that all ex northerners should enjoy. Like a warm bath comforts tired muscles, this book brings comfort to all those who miss the remarkable ambiance of the north. Hopefully those who have never traveled to this most sane part of Canada, will discover a little touch of that magic

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tomson Highway a master Storyteller, March 30, 2005

By	H. Beaudin-allen (Shuswap River, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Kiss of the Fur Queen (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series) (Hardcover)

This book is lyrical, magical and touching in a very deep sense. Highway makes you see and feel the way the northern Crees must have felt when children were sent to residential schools for 10 months of the year and would come back in the summer ashamed to speak their language. Highway also conveys the Indian spirit in his book by laughing at sad issues making them all the more poignant. Overall a masterpiece of structure, language and psychological portraiture.