The One Book, One Community committee is thrilled to welcome Waubgeshig Rice to our Region!

Moderated by Jesse Thistle.

Waubgeshig Rice has created a daring post-apocalyptic novel which resonates with this year’s current events. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow.

The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.

Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge, was inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community, and won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His debut novel, Legacy, followed in 2014. A French translation was published in 2017. His latest novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was released in October 2018 and became a national bestseller.

 

Jesse Thistle is a Métis-Cree author and assistant professor in the Department of Humanities at York University in Toronto. He is the author of the best-selling memoir, From the Ashes where he tells his own story of being homeless, becoming an addict and struggling with suicidal thoughts before ultimately finding his way. Thistle is a PhD candidate in the History program at York University where he is working on theories of inter generational and historic trauma of the Métis people. This work, which involves reflections on his own previous struggles with addiction and homelessness, has been recognized as having wide impact on both the scholarly community and the greater public.