Waubgeshig Rice didn’t originally intend to write a sequel to his 2018 book, Moon of the Crusted Snow.
But as fans fell in love with the characters and their struggles in a post-apocalyptic world, a second book was called for.
And so came Moon of the Turning Leaves, a book that is set 12 years after the events of the previous one. His latest work has earned him a place of distinction at Milton Public Library, as it was chosen as this year's One Book, One Milton read -- making Rice the first Indigenous author to be featured.
“To have something I have written to be the focus of a community discussion is a really cool development,” the Wasauksing First Nation author and journalist told MiltonToday.
Moon of the Turning Leaves is one of the latest in the well-stocked genre of post-apocalyptic media. In a category that is well-stocked with zombie-action stories like World War Z by Max Brooks or intensely bleak narratives like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Rice dispenses with many established conventions.
There certainly are trials and tribulations in the book, but no flesh-eating undead. A grim reality lays out the stakes for the characters, but hope strengthens them so they don’t wallow in self-pity.
The larger message of the book -- resilience and survival -- is told through a homeric on-foot journey. Six indigenous individuals leave their families in Northern Ontario to find their ancestral home on the north shore of Lake Huron.
To understand why the characters of the book do this, the reader has to understand the world Rice built in the previous book. A permanent blackout erases the luxuries of modernity, throwing the world into chaos. Rice says he drew upon his experiences during the real-life blackout of 2003 as his inspiration for the story.
“The more we (he and his brother) talked about where we were, being in our community, we recognized we were surrounded by resourceful people who didn’t need electricity, cellphones or anything like that to survive,” Rice said in recalling the events of the blackout.
“We could go fishing and get food that way, or we could harvest berries and veggies from the bush and the gardens. It was a really affirming place,” he added.
Rice’s main protagonist in the sequel is a teenage Indigenous girl named Nangohns. The talented hunter, fisher and forager was born after the blackout. She is thus an analog for the audience of sorts for learning about the world she lives in.
Her family and their many close friends were living on a reservation in Northern Ontario in the era the characters called “jibwaa”, literally meaning “before” in Anishnaabemowen. They were expelled from their original homeland many generations before thanks to settler colonialism.
Once the blackout arrived, they left the reservation and started a different settlement called “Shki-Dnakiiwin,” which means “new village.” But they can’t stay long. Game, fish and other food from the land is dwindling, making starvation a fast approaching calamity.
Unburdened by settler colonialism, the group decides to send a party south to look for their ancestral homeland. Nangohns, her father Evan and four others volunteer to go on the journey and secure their future.
When they arrive in the first large city they find, there aren’t any people. Yet they still find horror in the emptiness, the remnants of humanity and desperate messages scrawled onto the wall of the local city hall. Spirits crushed, Nangohns pep talk also acts as the story’s thesis.
“What about us?,” she begins her semi-soliloquy when one character suggests giving up going back to their settlement to an uncertain future. “I love it there and I respect the land. But you all know we were supposed to disappear. They didn’t want us to survive on that land. They wanted us to die.”
Nangohns continued imparting wisdom: “But we have to think about the future. We’ll still be here after you’re gone. And we deserve a say in the world we’re going to live in. I say we keep going.”
Rice says that his character looks both to the past and future to remind the group, and therefore the reader, of “the trauma of their past, but also their resilience.”
“We go to see this journey through because they finally have the sovereignty to determine their own fate. Previously they couldn’t because they were colonized people,” said Rice. “In many ways, it captures the moment we are in now just in terms of Indigenous awareness.”
Rice will be giving a talk at the FirstOntario Arts Centre in Milton on Nov. 20 as part of the One Book, One Milton campaign. He says that his audience always comes with lots of good questions and looks forward to his readers giving their takeaways from the work, which often surprise him.
One does not have to, he says, read the first book to understand Moon of the Turning Leaves. The story is pretty self-contained even though it is tied to Moon of the Crusted Snow.
To stay up-to-date on all things related to One Book, One Milton and to buy tickets to the talk An Evening with Waubgeshig Rice, visit the Milton Public Library’s website.