by Conor Kerr
Strange Light
2024/$24.95/272 pp.
Conor Kerr, a Métis/Ukrainian prairie writer, imbues his texts with loving descriptions of the lands he calls home. One of the CBC’s 2022 Writers to Watch, and with his novel Avenue of Champions shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, longlisted for the Giller Prize, and winning the 2022 ReLit Award, he comes out strong in his second novel, Prairie Edge. The prologue sets the stage for a heartbreaking, humorous, and defiantly proud story of two young Métis cousins who hatch a plan to free bison from a nearby national park, bring them into downtown Edmonton and change the urban landscape into more of what it could look like if land truly were given back, not just to the Indigenous people, but also to the animals who called it home for centuries.
Humour threads through this book like music from a Métis fiddle, sweeping in and out, sometimes loud, thunderous like a herd of bison, and sometimes quiet and soft like the swish of prairie grass. “Being a bison rustler made me feel like I was living in an old-time western movie,” says one of the cousins. “The kind that hired Italians to play the Indians.” I found myself laughing out loud throughout and texting friends the funniest parts so they too could share a laugh about a white hunter who dons thousands of dollars’ worth of custom camo only to fail at catching even a single moose.
Embedded in the text are historical lessons on the role and place of bison in the prairies, from the birds that used them for survival, to the people who depended on them for sustenance, to the very grasses they would walk over. Showing the historical lives of the bison highlights both current efforts to revitalize their populations and the fact that they are now for the most part caged in small territories without the freedom to roam as they once did. Kerr contrasts this with the theme of Indigenous kids being taken from families, put into a cold and unfriendly foster system and, when aged out, living with the constant threat of jail. “It’s either do something monumental or just fade into an inevitable jail cell.” Both the bison and the people are caged. But what if there were no more cages?
Through his characters, Kerr looks at what it might truly take to live in a state of reclamation and reconciliation. Bringing back the bison and repopulating the land with all that’s been lost is one answer explored in this novel. Both funny and politically aware, Kerr also delivers a sharp-edged critique of modern activism—a realm in which posturing often overshadows bold action. Thought-provoking and a great read, Prairie Edge is a story of resistance and a love letter to bison and the people who survive alongside them and because of them.
Francine Cunningham is a Cree/Métis author and artist.
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Read more from the archive “Don’t Fence Me In” July 2018.
