Joseph Boyden’s Through Black Spruce
Joseph Boyden
Through Black Spruce
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009
368 pages
£14.99
ISBN 978-0297848417
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Gorgeous idylls, sweeping forests, indigenous hunters—these are probably the first things that the remote aboriginal regions of Canada call to mind. But Joseph Boyden’s new novel, Through Black Spruce, turns this idyllic vision on its head. The novel immerses us in the gritty realities of blood feuds and drug-dealing taking hold of modern-day aboriginal Ontario. The intertwining narratives of Annie Bird and her uncle, Will (the son of the heroic soldier from Boyden’s bestselling debut, Three Day Road (2005)), chart the survival of a Cree family caught in the violent tensions between two households.
The memories of Will, comatose in a hospital following a serious plane crash, highlight the loss of traditional ways of life to a modern world of supermarkets and “the E-bay”. Boyden lends a genuine depth to this ageing hunter, who fears he is losing his status as “bush man in this town”, is baffled by everyday modern inventions such as Caller ID and whose gun constantly reminds him of the greatness of the father he can never live up to. But, unfortunately, Boyden’s treatment of Will frequently devolves into corny advice on the spiritual need to “dig through the waterlogged photo albums that were the sum of your life”. At these moments, the novel’s blurb professing Boyden’s “rare empathy for the empty places concealed within the heart” rings all too true in its forewarnings of overwrought emotion.
Boyden’s idealisation of Annie, who leaves her uncle’s bedside to search for her missing sister in Manhattan, errs equally towards melodrama. Thankfully, though, this sentimentality is tempered by Boyden’s subtle portrayal of Annie’s negotiation of the New York social scene. Annie progresses from moments when Manhattan makes her “want to scream and throw these glasses and run away from here” to her later realisation of the city’s innate charm, all conveyed with a remarkable lightness of touch.
An overarching narrative of familial “strength”, however, dominates Through Black Spruce—and to the novel’s great detriment. Boyden’s search through the black spruce of Cree culture trails off into a trite paean to familial unity. This is truly a disappointment, as his lucid approach to two very different cultures promises us so much more.
Byron Spring is reading for an MSt in German literature at Brasenose College.
