Book Review: Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
Goodreads Description: Saul Indian Horse has hit bottom. His last binge almost killed him, and now he’s a reluctant resident in a treatment centre for alcoholics, surrounded by people he’s sure will never understand him. But Saul wants peace, and he grudgingly comes to see that he’ll find it only through telling his story. With him, readers embark on a journey back through the life he’s led as a northern Ojibway, with all its joys and sorrows.
My Review: There are some minor spoilers in this review. No details are given away, but I do name Saul's trauma experience.
To summarize this novel in a single word: trauma. From its opening pages, Indian Horse makes it clear this story is about collective trauma and how it manifests in individuals. The novel attempts to illuminate the history of so many Indigenous people who have been chewed up and spit out by the Canadian state.
Saul's story details his entire life, beginning in the 1960s when he lived with his family in the bush -- an attempt to stay hidden from the Indian Agents that hunted down Indigenous children and their families in order to put them into residential schools. Despite their best attempts, Saul's family is unable to survive during winter in the wild and he is shipped off to a residential school, where he's introduced to both horrific systematic abuse, as well as hockey as a coping response. Hockey becomes Saul's entire world and he does anything to be a part of the game, whether that's volunteering to care for the rink in the early morning or getting close with Father Leboutilier, the priest at the school that coaches the team. Eventually, Saul's hockey skills are recognized and he begins a career that brings him right up to the NHL -- until his trauma catches up to him. In order to heal, Saul has to stop hiding behind hockey and alcohol, and face the abuses that haunt him to this day.
Wagamese drew on his own experiences when writing this novel, which feels obvious when reading. Much of the book is written with first hand experiential details that bring the story to life in a quiet but real way. The more upsetting subjects, such as physical and sexual abuse, were handled with care and weren't milked for drama or tension. Wagamese depicts the trauma and abuses with incredible compassion and care, and demonstrates how powerful forgiveness can be in shifting one's perspective. Saul doesn't hold any resentment towards his parents for their neglect, as he recognizes it's a result of their own trauma. This compassion towards his abusers continues all throughout the book and builds on themes of forgiveness and healing as a source of strength.
Indian Horse expertly mirrors the experience of abuse survivors coming to terms with childhood trauma in their adult years. Throughout most of the novel, Saul doesn't directly address the worst abuses he faced, though some readers might pick up on the 'elephant in the room,' a subject not addressed but the presence of which can be felt in every scene. Trauma survivors have a tendency to downplay their experiences in an effort to cope, which is reflected in how Saul focuses on the pain of others while quietly downplaying his own experiences through vague language. This vagueness is stripped away at the end of the novel and direct words like 'rape' are finally attached to Saul's experience, forcing both the character and the reader to come to terms with what he's experienced. This flip from vague avoidance to direct language is reminiscent of how victims of childhood abuse come to understand what has happened to them -- a slow denial that ends with hard, unavoidable realizations. In order to survive, victims may identify with their abuser, or they may be too young to comprehend why a caregiver would harm them, and create justifications to explain it. During healing, these layers of repression are stripped away and the victim faces the truth of what happened to them in order to overcome it. Wagamese recreates this experience within the text and allows the reader to go through this realization alongside Saul to fully empathize with this experience.
Indian Horse exists as one of those books that allows readers to empathize with a perspective they never would otherwise. This book sets itself against the multitude of stereotypes that divide Indigenous Canadians from other communities in Canada, tackling issues like identity, race, racism, systematic oppression, and intergenerational trauma. All this builds a picture for why some Indigenous people present and behave the way they do from a place of understanding and compassion.
TL;DR: 4/5 stars. A beautifully empathetic character study of an Indigenous man living in a racist society.
