Book Review: The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour by Dawn Dumont
Goodreads Description: 'The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour' is loosely based - like, hospital-gown loose - on the true story of a group of Indigenous dancers who left Saskatchewan and toured through Europe in the 1970s. Dawn Dumont brings her signature razor-sharp wit and impeccable comedic timing to this hilarious, warm, and wildly entertaining novel.
My Review: When the usual dance troupe gets food poisoning. John Greyeyes is tasked with leading a replacement troupe through a series of powwows across Europe -- except the replacement dancers can't dance, and John only has a few days to whip them into shape. Along the tour, the crew stumbles into a series of wacky adventures, including a plane hijacking, an FBI smuggling investigation, identity theft, and a break and enter at the Vatican that lands one of the dancers in jail. Dawn Dumont has crafted a riot of a book that is both utterly ridiculous and grounds readers with solid, heartfelt moments.
While Prairie Chicken is a wild ride shot through with humour, it does address topics like racism, residential schools, and homophobia with the seriousness that they deserve. It doesn't linger on these topics, but they surface as important aspects to character arcs. Due to trauma, several characters are closed off to love, but over the course of the novel, they begin to heal their trauma and open themselves up to love again (including self-love). Watching these silly little characters grow and learn to love themselves despite their flaws was truly endearing. It's hard not to fall in love these characters, even if we don't spend much time directly in their heads.
The narrative has next to no introspection -- the prose is entirely focused on the action of the scene. And holy, there is a lot. The book features a large cast of main characters and they all take part in almost every scene, which makes things busy. The book also doesn't linger on moments and keeps the action moving as much as possible. While some might find the busyness overwhelming, the writing is balanced and scenes flow so the reader doesn't lose the thread of the narrative. Coupled with it's style of humour, the book feels like a Benny Hill sketch, in a good way.
At the end of the day, The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour is pure, heartwarming fun. I laughed so much while reading it and it still brightens my day to think of this ridiculous story. Plus it's got a gay Indigenous cowboy who is Done With Everyone's Shit™, so it's got a special place in my heart.
TL;DR: 5/5 stars. A hilarious and heartfelt story of a ragtag crew that crosses Europe to find themselves.
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