[In the following review, Cariou contrasts Truth and Bright Water with Beatrice Culleton Mosionier's In Search of April Raintree, asserting that the novels represent the two extremes of contemporary First Nations literature.]

Over the last 20 years, First Nations literature in Canada has gone from a footnote in the country's literary scene to a burgeoning and multifaceted scene of its own, and there are many indications that this flowering will continue for a long time to come. The recent republication of Beatrice Culleton Misionier's 1983 novel In Search of April Raintree and the much-awaited new release of Thomas King's Truth and Bright Water provide an opportunity to ponder how we got here, and where these developments might lead.

Beatrice Culleton Mosionier (formerly Beatrice Culleton) was one of the first Native novelists to achieve national recognition, and In Search of April Raintree has often been cited as a strong influence on the younger generation of First Nations writers. Thomas King is Canada's most famous Native writer—an appellation that he shares with Truth and Bright Water's heroic artist Munroe Swimmer, who ironically insists that everyone call him “Famous Indian artist.” One could hardly imagine two more different novels, which is I think a healthy sign of the diversity of contemporary Native literature.

In Search of April Raintree is the wrenching story of two Métis sisters, Cheryl and April, who are taken from their parents by Children's Aid and raised in foster homes, sometimes together and sometimes separately. April has “pale skin” like her mother, whereas Cheryl has “black hair, dark brown eyes which turned black when angry, and brown skin.” The two sisters are almost identical except for their skin colour, which suggests that they are in some sense doubles, doppelgangers of racial hybridity. In Search of April Raintree is in fact almost gothic in its images of doubling, deception and violence. There are no ghosts here except the shocking spectres of racism, abuse and racial passing, but the result is far more haunting than any formulaic gothic tale.

The two sisters' different colouration marks their identities. From very early on, brown-skinned Cheryl is a proud defender of her Métis heritage. Even in grade school, she challenges the history textbook's version of the Riel Rebellion. She devotes her spare time to writing revisionist histories of the Métis people, but the novel's narrator April is not impressed with these histories. “How come all this mattered to Cheryl so much?” she asks. “Did it help her accept the colour of her skin?”

April is embarrassed to be associated with the Métis, and she uses her light skin to advantage when she decides to pass as white. In a way, April lives up to Cheryl's childhood name for her: “Apple.” She is often successful in disguising her Native heritage, and she even manages to marry a wealthy white businessman from Toronto. To maintain her facade of whiteness, however, she must avoid associating with her brown-skinned sister.

In Search of April Raintree is not so much about Native identity as it is about the dilemma of Native-white hybridity—a theme that is understandably common in Métis writing. April chooses one obviously deceptive way of effacing her hybridity: passing as white. But Cheryl's path is not entirely realistic either, since she preserves a romanticized image of Native people and particularly of her parents, whom she doesn't remember. Both sisters mislead themselves and each other, and this deception eventually has tragic consequences.

The novel's brutal and unflinchingly portrayed turning point takes us to an emotional extreme that has seldom been equalled in any literary tradition. This is one of the most visceral books I have ever read: it reaches straight for your most basic fear and love instincts, and it won't let go until you are completely drained. The violence in the novel is senseless yet almost inevitable, and it follows a kind of murky logic that terrifies. I think this nightmarish excess is justified because Mosionier puts us through the emotional wringer for very important political and ethical reasons. Reading this tragedy, we are brought face to face with the returns of racism and colonialism.

The weakness of In Search of April Raintree is its lack of polish. A great prose stylist Mosionier is not. The question is whether this drawback constitutes a serious flaw in the novel, and I believe it doesn't. Mosionier's artistry lies not in her style but in her ability to present characters in extremely complex and difficult situations, in ways that involve the reader in an intensely emotional experience.

One sign of April Raintree's richness is the diversity of critical responses to it. This new critical edition of the text, edited by Cheryl Suzack, contains ten essays on the novel by scholars and writers, including one by Mosionier herself. This is the first critical edition of any text by a Canadian First Nations writer, and Suzack is to be commended for initiating the project and for choosing some compelling critical essays, particularly those by Margery Fee, Jo-Ann Thom and Helen Hoy.

Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King's wry masterpiece of white and Native struggles over land, water and culture, is very likely to reach the same kind of canonical status that In Search of April Raintree has now attained, and I look forward to reading a critical edition of it some day. This book left readers with high expectations for King's newest novel. Has he done it again? The answer to that question depends on what one means by “it.”

Truth and Bright Water contains tantalizing elements of mystery, fantasy and, most importantly, comedy à la King. The 15-year-old narrator, Tecumseh, gives us a naïve point of view on most of the happenings in the novel, and his naïveté in some ways heightens the comedic ironies of the book. However, Tecumseh is so clueless that King stretches the limits of credibility here; there are times when the boy seems to be much younger. I suspect the novel would have more narrative interest if Tecumseh was more of a live wire like his cousin Lum. But character is not what this novel is really about; allegory is.

The entire foundation of the book is its geographical symbolism. The communities of Truth and Bright Water are separated by the Shield River, which functions as a metaphor for the surface of artistic representation. Bright Water is a reserve on the Canadian side of the river, while Truth is a non-Native settlement on the American side. The two communities look at each other across the shimmering surface of the water, which they are unable to cross easily because the bridge between them was abandoned before its completion. The most important thing about this symbol is the contrast it creates between the mundane realities of truth and the more mythic aspects of existence found across the river in the play of bright waters—that is, in artistic representations.

Indeed, almost all of the Native characters in Truth and Bright Water are artists of one kind or another, even though several of them (including the narrator) actually live in Truth. The act of artistic creation often seems to give meaning to these people's lives—or if it doesn't give meaning, at least it earns them a little extra spending money when the tourists come to “Indian Days” looking for “authentic” Indian art.

At the heart of the novel's symbolic code is Munroe Swimmer, self-declared “Famous Indian artist.” Swimmer, has set himself the task of obliterating the community's symbols of colonization, particularly the missionary church on the hill overlooking Truth, which he purchases and then (magically) paints out of existence. His project is in fact to decolonize the images of North American history, and his name is indicative of this allegorical function, since he swims in the medium of representation, dropping some things into its depths and dredging up others.

Swimmer's ultimate motivation is political, though one wouldn't guess that at first glance—and the same can be said of King's novel. His jokes and symbols are highly politicized, but his touch is so light that many readers probably won't recognize it. There seems to be none of the anger here that we find in In Search of April Raintree, but on closer observation we find that anger has been transmuted into a kind of guerrilla comedy. It's what might be called the humour of decolonization: an unlikely amalgam of Fanon, Mourning Dove and Seinfeld.

The problem here is that Truth and Bright Water is so weighed down by the groaning architecture of its symbolism that there is hardly any room for the characters to have an appearance of agency or depth. I think this is why the narrator is so insipid: because he is really little more than a cipher to the larger symbolic structures of the novel. The whole novel has the feeling of an exercise rather than an adventure, and in this respect it differs from all of King's previous work. When we finally realize that most of the novel's events have taken place to justify an elaborate experiment in symbolism, the first reaction is chagrin that we have been duped. It might seem that this time the joke is on us.

However, I don't think this is King's real intention here. I suspect he just got so caught up in the machinery of his symbols that there was no room left for complex characters and narrative drive. Luckily, we might also have a second possible reaction to the novel: a belated delight in the depth and cleverness of King's web of symbols, which gives off an almost inexhaustible supply of meanings (in coming years a few English professors will earn merit increments by discovering these meanings and charting their possible significance). But unlike my experience of some other allegorical works—including Green Grass, Running Water, where the symbols enhance the narrative instead of mastering it—I'm not left with a strong desire to dive back into the symbolic surface of Truth and Bright Water.

There is a great divide between Mosionier's raw and intensely affecting novel and King's intricate, funny and somewhat overly clever one. Neither of these writers' approaches is necessarily more authentic or even more politically effective than the other, though I do wish King had moved slightly towards Mosionier's rough-around-the-edges style for the sake of narrative interest. The two novels stand as a testament to the vast range of contemporary First Nations writing. Future writers in this tradition will have to claim their territory somewhere between these two extremes.