Saul Indian Horse is a child when his family retreats into the woods. Among
the lakes and the cedars, they attempt to reconnect with half-forgotten
traditions and hide from the authorities who have been kidnapping Ojibway
youth. But when winter approaches, Saul loses everything : his brother, his
parents, his beloved grandmother—and then his home itself. Alone in the
world and placed in a horrific boarding school, Saul is surrounded by
violence and cruelty. At the urging of a priest, he finds a tentative
salvation in hockey. Rising at dawn to practice alone, Saul proves
determined and gifted. Yet as his victories mount, so do the indignities
and the taunts, the racism and the hatred—the harshness of a world that
will never welcome him. Spare and compact yet undeniably rich, Indian Horse
is at once a heartbreaking account of a dark chapter in our history and a
moving coming-of-age story. Indian Horse distills much of what Wagamese
has been writing about for his whole career into a clearer and sharper
liquor, both more bitter and more moving than he has managed in the past.
He is such a master of empathy - of delineating the experience of time
passing, of lessons being learned, of tragedies being endured - that what
Saul discovers becomes something the reader learns, as well, shocking and
alien, valuable and true.