Beginning June 1, through June 21, I’ll be sharing a recommended read by an indigenous author each day on Twitter. Today, here, a bonus to celebrate: thoughts on the latest Thomas King mystery set in Chinook. On June 1st, June 7th and June 21st, check back for more recent indigenous reading.
So much has changed in Chinook since readers last spent time with Thumps. The new café, for instance: Mirrors (named for Eduardo Galeano’s work, complete with references to Memory of Fire, Upside Down and The Book of Embraces). And, get this: Thumps is involved in the production of a reality television program.
Okay, that’s about it for new things. Which is just as it should be. Neither Thumps, nor the series’ readers who have already enjoyed the previous three volumes, are looking for a whole lot of different. (Thoughts on the earlier books in the series are here.)
Readers return to Chinook, like Thumps to the diner with the best breakfast (and you KNOW it’s not Mirrors), because we know it’s going to be good, just as it is.
We want to return to Archie’s bookstore in the old Carnegie library that he rescued from the developers to house “the best bookstore in the real west”.
We want to know what’s on Thumps’ to-do list before he reviews it in his mind. “If Thumps had bothered making a to-do list, it would not have included working for a reality television program.” And: “He ran through his to-do list once again. Car, cat, Claire.”
We do want Thumps to solve the mystery, but we also want him to figure out where Freeway has gotten to, and we want to see him rearranging his bookshelves more than we want to see shots fired in the streets of Chinook.
“Thumps spent the next hour organizing his books. They had gotten out of order. Walter Mosley had wound up next to Eden Robinson, Richard Wagamese had slipped in between Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. He debated rearranging the volumes by genre or by topic or even gender and race, and nationality, even though he understood that all of these categories were social constructions, all of them precarious at best. Some more dangerous than others.
In the end, he settled for the alphabetical solution.”
Thomas King’s mysteries are an alphabetical solution: A is for Addictive, B is for Believable, and C is for Chill. Along the way, he makes some sharp points, but it’s like they’re piercing through a cozy afghan: you can feel it, but it doesn’t hurt.
I love the sound of these mysteries. And I love being able to recommend books by Indigenous authors that are not just about Indigenous issues (not that there’s anything wrong with that, either!) I love that quote about organizing his books. And I love the last line of your review. Four “loves”. 🙂
Which is remarkable in my books, because you’re not even much for mysteries, overall, I mean! But, actually, I think you’d like these. They are mysteries, in one sense, but they are more about the small town and the community and his cat and his girlfriend and- and- and-. Plus you would LOVE the bookstore. (Five loves, then!)
Five loves!
It has to be the right kind of mystery (whatever that is!), but these sound very promising. (A cat!)
OH, yes…I think one could make an argument that these are the Freeway mysteries, because I bet I’m not the only reader who is, at times, more concerned with Freeway the cat’s escapades than with Thumps’ goings-on.
What an interesting project! I haven’t read many mysteries, but this series sounds captivating. Is this the kind of book you’d be able to enjoy independent of the others? Curious to know how heavily the author relies on series-long arcs.
I was actually asking myself that very question as I read through this one because it does feel as though he’s tried to make this volume an alternate access point: it almost feels a little out-of-time, suspended. The first two were published in 2002 and 2006 (and under a pseudonym), the most recent in 2018 and 2019. There is an overarching question from Thumps’ past, which remains unanswered in all four volumes but is clearly poised to be resolved in the final volume (titled for it), but there are only fleeting references. These must be a lot of fun to write, a bit of relief from his heavier stuff!
I’m not sure I’ve actually ever read a Thomas King book, which I’m quite ashamed to type here. I took an indigenous literature course in university and I’m sure we would have read one of his books in that, but perhaps not? I’ve wanted to read An Inconvenient Indian for some time now…
Plus, if your English classes were anything like mine, there were usually one or two texts that you kinda had to sacrifice in order to keep up with other reading, so maybe one of his fell by the wayside. looks guiltily at Joseph Andrews I recommend the first story in A Short History of Indians in Canada, which is only four pages long, and if you like it, you’ll be burning to read on, with one of the longer works. (And, then, maybe you’ll want to back to the short stories, but maybe not.) And, if not, then at least you can say you’ve read something!
By coincidence, I’m currently reading There, There by Tommy Orange. I know, he’s American Indian, but before colonisation, there wasn’t a border between the two countries!
BTW I host Indigenous Literature Week every year in July so if you’d like to contribute these reviews then (when I’ve got the page set up), that would be lovely:)
I think the only reason to track U.S. or Canada is their eligibility for literary awards in the colonial country with whom they have a legal relationship because the relationships between sovereign indigenous communities are a whole other thing. Which I remember finding confusing as a younger person, who’d memorized her borders so carefully in social studies class. That’s definitely an event I’ll participate in. There is an Alexis Wright novel I’ve been meaning to read for ages (The Swan Book, IIRC) and that be an ideal reason to squeeze it into July. Do you have planned dates for it already?
I’ve read just one Thomas King – Green Grass, Running Water – bought while on holiday in California over 20 years ago. Very enjoyable, as I remember!
That remains my favourite: perhaps only because it was my first. Oh, maybe An Inconvenient Indian, if one is counting non-fiction. Or, The Truth about Storytelling. Okay, never mind. I can’t choose.