[In the excerpt below, Gillies considers King's treatment of time, memory, and identity in Medicine River.]

One of the great literary obsessions of the twentieth century is time. As Tom King's Medicine River and David Helwig's Of Desire amply demonstrate, this preoccupation has not diminished.

King is well known for his criticism, poetry, and short stories; Medicine River is his first novel. It is a marvelous work which effortlessly presents snapshots of life as seen through the eyes of its half-native narrator, Will a photographer who flees Toronto and returns home to Medicine River, Alberta. Through him we meet other members of the town's native community—Harlen Bigbear, who has a hand in almost everything going on; Louise Heavyman, the independent minded accountant with whom Will has a relationship; Floyd, Elwood, and the other players on the Medicine River Friendship Centre Warriors basketball team; and Martha Oldcrow, the marriage doctor; January Pretty Weasel, a battered wife who may have played a part in her husband's apparent suicide; David Plume, a native activist who was at Wounded Knee, and others. Will tells us bits of their stories and from them a strong sense of place, of person, of a way of life emerges. King does not use the novel as a platform from which he can lecture non-natives about native Canadians; he chooses the harder, and more effective, route of drawing the reader into the daily lives of Louise, Harlen and Will. He succeeds where polemics would surely fail.

At the novel's heart is Will who needs to reconcile his upbringing as an outsider in both white and native worlds with his current standing in Medicine River. A seamless blend of past and present occur; each contributes to our portrait of Will. He is haunted by many memories: of his mother, Rose Horse Capture, who lost her treaty status when she married Will's father Bob, a white rodeo cowboy whom he cannot remember; of his younger brother James, an artist whom he has not seen since his mother died; of Susan, the married, white lover he leaves behind in Toronto; and of childhood recollections which counterpoint and illuminate his adult life. Will finds a place in Medicine River's native community as an adult, but his past dictates to him that he remain apart from it. His profession is symbolic of his position in both white and native communities—apart, observing and recording both worlds with the acute lens of his camera. By weaving together past and present, native and non-native, humourous and insightful accounts, King creates a subtle and rich novel. Its loose episodic structure serves the narrative well for it imparts a reflective mood to the work and it allows him the scope necessary to present a vivid and varied photo of Will's world.