Publisher's Synopsis
There is a deep churning within identity where the devices of history, of humanity, are polished. One of the grindstones is the place we live and call home. Ten stories run a gamut of experience lived, witnessed, and imagined. The characters have all left home, lost home, or have trouble living there. There is a growing commonality around the world, among individuals' personal and political sense of displacement. The search for belonging ensues. It is often negotiated through that tempest of dust kicked up along others' paths as their identities suck and whirl and even offer shelter.Some of these stories go to the impact of European imperialism on Indigenous peoples here in the west. Some turn back onto upheavals among Europeans which cracked ancient human codes, and dwelling places, in similar fashion.The road home comes up against borders real and imagined; physical and spiritual. Borders are sometimes advanced against us, and sometimes they are nailed up in defense by people who can no longer recognize us. Very often, after all we have been through to finally return, the old place just isn't the same. And neither are we.The characters in these stories come from imagined pasts, possible futures, and real life. Each one spins their own story until we recognize ourselves in the blurred, familiar patterns."Little Blue Riding Hood" is a girl who can only find herself when she's running away, and she never really gets there. In "Ghosts of St. Mary's," the child is only saved from Indian Residential School after she's passed to the spirit world. "The General" is still fighting a war he lost a long time ago. In "Passport," seven people stranded abroad realize that picture identification is only one way to get through borders. "Coyote's Last Strategy" is a battle so long-suffered that his people seem to lose everything - and, yet, nothing at all. "Magred and the Fire Flowers" tells the story of our collective struggle in one small mountain village. "War Chief" switches sides to win. We consider what lets people live together in "Tattoo." A very intimate, overdue conversation takes place in "The Camera." We see what the world wants with women in, "The Mill." "Fish Rock Boy" reminds us what it is to be people of the land.About the Author: Kerry Coast is a journalist, dramatist, former editor of The St'át'imc Runner and The BC Treaty Negotiating Times newspapers, co-founder and writer for the Úcwalmicw Players theatre company; and author. Her first book, The Colonial Present, was published in 2013. Other titles include Speeches from the Crowd. See her bio on www.electromagneticprint.com.Coast's current projects include a tribute to the legendary Secwepemc leader William Ignace, "Wolverine's Sovereignty"; and "Roadblock" - an encyclopedic documentary of Indigenous roadblocks in British Columbia; and "The Fifth World - A Non-Status Indian Reality," by Tsayskiy, Ron George, of Wet'suwet'en.
