One Good Story, That One

Lalage Grauer teaches English at Okanagan University College in Kelowna,
B.C.

Thomas King’s subversive humor pervades this collection. The title
story involves a reversal of the situation in which anthropologists
collect, record, and interpret sacred aboriginal stories in terms of
their own cultural biases. Asked for a traditional story by
anthropologists, the Blackfoot narrator gives them a “good
story”—a garbled and hilarious version of the biblical story of
Genesis, in which a petty and selfish God wants to keep all the apples
to himself. The story is written in ungrammatical, informal language
that mimics oral narration. Like two other stories in the collection
(“The One About Coyote Going West” and “A Coyote Columbus
Story”), this story incorporates characteristics of the trickster
tale, which King uses to comment satirically on modern culture. “Trap
Lines” and “Borders” convey the bittersweet flavor of King’s
first novel, Medicine River.

This is a valuable addition to the oeuvre of an increasingly acclaimed
and powerful voice in contemporary Native literature.