Sunday, January 24, 2010

THREE DAY ROAD by Joseph Boyden (2005)

I've read several wonderful novels set on the front during WWI including Pat Barker's REGENERATION trilogy and Timothy Findley's THE WARS, but none of them matches the exquisite detail and narrative triumph of THREE DAY ROAD.

With the convincing authentic voices of Xavier Bird (a Native sniper in the Canadian division on the front at Vimy and Ypres and Passchendaele) and his last remaining relative Niska threading together in the cyclical tradition of Native storytelling, Joseph Boyden weaves together stories that hurt, resonate and matter.

Using the legend of the windigo as a through line, THREE DAY ROAD will open your eyes once again to the human capacity to endure man's inhumanity to man and our desire for healing through the balm of storytelling.

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