Truth and Bright Water

Description

266 pages
$32.00
ISBN 0-00-225503-0
DDC C813'.54

Author

Year

1999

Contributor

Reviewed by Hugh Oliver

Hugh Oliver is the former editor-in-chief of the OISE (Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education) Press. He is the author of Hoblyn: A Novel in
Three Parts and Voices from the Cradle, Echoes from the Grave: A Volume
of Verse.

Review

Truth is a railway town on the American side of the forty-ninth
parallel, and Bright Water is a prairie Indian reserve on the Canadian
side. Although a river divides the two communities, the occupants move
freely from one side to the other without any obvious sense of
nationality.

Narrated by a teenage Indian youth, Truth and Bright Water has a plot
that would barely sustain a short story. The meat of the novel is the
interplay of the characters, who include the protagonist’s
dysfunctional family, his older male cousin, and Monroe Swimmer, a
“famous Indian artist.” Monroe has bought the local church and is
trying to paint it into the background; he also seeks to stock the
hillside with a herd of metallic buffalo.

King’s dialogue, which constitutes a significant portion of the
novel, owes much to Harold Pinter. Questions are left suspended and in
most conversations the link between the speakers is at best tangential.
Truth and Bright Water would have been a stronger book had the author
paid sufficient heed to the underlying structure.

Citation

King, Thomas., “Truth and Bright Water,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed November 3, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/8334.