Books 2 and 3 of the trickster trilogy continue to be crude, hilarious, violent, and still quite sweet. Jared just wants to go to college and study medical imaging, but his heritage includes magic and his family situation is complicated way beyond the normal trauma inherited by Indigenous peoples in Canada. The interesting thing about this trilogy is that Jared doesn’t really grow as a character; he remains the same solid, thoughtful guy that he was at the beginning of the books, except he gradually gets less dependent on drugs and alcohol, more traumatized by external events, and more aware of his magical heritage. Instead, the growth and change can be seen in the people around him: his mom, who gets better at expressing her feelings; his various grandmother figures, who come to terms with his origin; his father figures, who figure out what they really want in life (or in afterlife), and his friends, who become stronger and better people around him.
Tag: author-eden robinson
Son of a Trickster, by Eden Robinson
I got this from the Dominion City book club last summer and finally read it! This book was a pleasure to read, with snappy conversations and low-key show-don’t-tell narration. Jared is a teen Native just trying to make his way through life despite his rough home situation. He’s a good kid with an appealing mixture of toughness, thoughtfulness, and black humor, which sustains the reader through the continual drumbeat of intergenerational trauma that we see all around him. The introduction of the Indigenous mythical elements is a slow burn; it’s not until near the end that Jared figures out that the voices and visions he experiences are not just drug-induced hallucinations. The pacing feels more like a Part 1 than a standalone novel, but the writing is good enough that I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.