Stones and Switches

Marjorie Retzleff teaches English at Champlain College in Quebec.

This first-rate novel about Native Canadian life is presented in the
voice of a Native Canadian, with a large amount of the credit going to
the En’owkin International School of Writing, which recognized and
encouraged that voice. Unfortunately, the novel must stand as a memorial
to its author, Lorne Simon, who died in a car accident at the time the
book was going through its final proofreading. Canadian literature has
lost a writer of great potential.

Set in a Micmac community during the 1930s, Stones and Switches
describes the many conflicts in the life of Megwadesk, a sensitive young
Micmac—in particular, the conflict between his people and members of
the local white community, who regularly throw stones at the Indian
fishermen and who squat with impunity on reserve land; and the conflict
between his fiancée, Mimi, and Father Colérique, the unsympathetic
local Roman Catholic priest who declares Mimi to be a bastard and
therefore outside the Church. Above all, the novel relates the turmoil
the protagonist goes through as he struggles to balance the rewards,
punishments, lore, and laws of his Micmac heritage with the tenets of
the Roman Catholic Church.

This powerful and engrossing novel is liberal in its use of Micmac
words (a glossary is included). Although the point of view is third
person, the reader feels fully involved in Megwadesk’s spiritual
struggles. The climax, which features a mystical dream sequence, is
brilliantly surrealistic. This is a wonderful book.