Monkey Beach

I don't usually like coming of age stories about teenage shenanigans but these teenagers are truely original as is the beautiful Northwestcoast setting. I revelled in bays and inlets full of killer whales, and seals, and birds, and ghosts that whisper through the trees, really atmosphereic. My prior knowledge of Northwestcoast Indian mythology and art gave it an added dimension. Read and enjoy.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson begins at the end and opens up to take you on a spirally path of a few days' journey that stretches over a child's lifetime. Before you know it, you are connected to the family and the village of Haisla people, and you get a first-hand observation of this family and their tangled lives. The language Robinson uses, skillfully raw, but always making its point felt, gives you an intimate sense of the culture of the book's inhabitants. It is a story well-told, deeply moving, highly absorbing, and alive every moment. It is a treat to those of us who grew up in a different world to learn about a culture, not so unlike the rest of North America, yet with its own disfunctions and foodstuffs and myths. It is also a treat to have such a fine writer as Eden Robinson take her story and give birth to it in print to share it with us. I appreciate the other-world connection and Robinson's use of it as real, tangible. My favorite line in the book is: "As I drove away, I felt deeply comforted knowing that magical things were still living in the world."

Robinson's book is a great "modern" fairy tale that deftly weaves the sad truth about Native Americans such as reserve life, alcohol, poverty and residential schools with an interesting twist of old mythology. There are liberal doses of hard reality such as broken lives due to substance abuse and hard living mixed in with flights of fancy about the "sasquatch" said to be living in the coastal area in the Queen Charlotte islands.The book captures the crisis moment for a native family when they are told their son's (who is portrayed as somewhat of a golden child) boat has disappeared off of the coast. The family's story, along with most of the village, is told in a series of intertwined flashbacks that really demonstrate Robinson's excellent narrative skills.I won't spoil anything else in the fine tale but would highly recommend the story. Anyone who has read Silko, or even De Lindt, will likely enjoy this tale. Those who have recently taken "authentic Indian names" and are looking to exploit more "Indian culture" will likely be disappointed by the fact that Robinson's book really fits in with more "mainstream" works such as Pynchon and Nicholas Christopher. Perhaps we need a new "cubbyhole" called "Native American Dark Urban Fantasy"?Buy a copy and support real talent!

I grew up 20 miles from where this story is set. It brought back many wonderful memories of youthful summers and listening to stories at my Mamaoo's knee. Robinson's description of Kitamaat and village life is dead on! Her vibrant, discriptive narrative allowed me to travel back in time, when my Grandparents would come to visit on their seiner and would tie up at Kitamaat. If you are interested in contemporary First Nations life, Robinson is the woman to write it. I look forward to her next novel.

I saw this author give a talk at Powell's sometime in the fall, so I was very excited to see the book available. In person she was fabulous- very funny and interesting, talking about how she wrote the book. Then I read the book, and I was not disappointed! It is kind of dark and yet funny at the same time, set along the coast of, I think, BC. The main character looks back over her life and eccentric family (including crazy cousin Mick, an Elvis fanatic) as they search for her brother, missing off of a commercial fishing boat. There are visits from Big Foot and other "ghosts," and, all in all, I loved it. It was one of those reads where I hate the book to end, and I miss the characters! Really excellent.