Good, a lawyer, advocated for residential school survivors and is now an adjudicator. The nomination trifecta on Tuesday was due to a COVID-19 only confluence: the Governor General’s nominations would normally have been announced in the fall, but the pandemic delayed those plans. and Yukon Book Prize and the Indigenous Voices Award. Instead, even before this week’s trifecta, it had already nominated for the Giller Prize, the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the B.C. “I’m so pleased that people from every walk of life, every age group … are engaging with this book,” she says, adding that she thought it would be a “niche book” that only a certain audience would be interested in. With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.That story has clearly struck a chord with critics and prize juries but also with readers. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job-through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps-trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome-or at least forget-the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.įuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.Īlone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them.

Michelle good five little indians