Silent Words

Beverly Rasporich is an associate professor in the Faculty of General
Studies at the University of Calgary and the author of Dance of the
Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro.

The recent renaissance of literature authored by Native writers in
English includes Ruby Slipperjack as a developing artist. Her first
novel, Honour the Sun, about a young Ojibwa girl, was published to rave
reviews. This second, Silent Words, takes it title from the silent
meanings and indirect communication of Native cultures. Told from the
point of view of a young Native boy, the novel has a literary style that
is deceptively simple—and Native. The narrative pattern is one that
the reader familiar with Euro-American storytelling will recognize as
broadly picaresque, akin to a Native version of Huckleberry Finn. The
central character, Danny, in flight from his abusive and alcoholic
father, discovers adventures, sympathetic Native characters—and
himself—in his journey through the frontier spaces and the Native
communities of northwestern Ontario.

Like Twain’s classic, this book can be read in several ways and on
different levels: as children’s literature for the pleasure of Native
and non-Native youth, and for education about actual Native experience;
as a Canadian fiction of stylistic intercultural invention; as a fiction
that can be contextualized within the canon of contemporary writing by
Native authors; and simply as an enjoyable adult read about the daily
experiences of surviving in the bush.