PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S TOP 10 ‘ESSENTIAL FICTION, NONFICTION,
MEMOIR AND SHORT STORIES BY NATIVE AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS AUTHORS TO ADD TO YOUR LIST’
The coming-of-age Indigenous cult classic.
Internationally praised and the subject of a critically
acclaimed film, Richard Van Camp’s bestselling novel about coming of age in
Canada’s North has achieved the status of an Indigenous classic. This special
20th anniversary edition features a new introduction from the author, as well
as two short stories that follow the lives of the novel’s main characters.
The Lesser Blessed tracks the exploits of Larry Sole, a
Dogrib teenager living in the small Northern town of Fort Simmer. After losing
much of his memory in a violent accident, what he loves more than anything is
reading, hearing and collecting stories. With no interest in booze or sports,
he floats on the edges of high school life, sustained by his love of Iron
Maiden and a hopeless passion for school hottie Juliet Hope. When good-looking,
trouble-seeking Johnny Beck moves into town, he shakes up Larry’s dreamy
existence and leads him into a life of sex, drugs and violence, bringing him
face to face with memories that he’s done his best to lose.
The Lesser Blessed is an eye-opening depiction of what it is to be a young
Dogrib man in the age of AIDS, disillusionment with Catholicism, and a growing
world consciousness.
