As long as the rivers flow [electronic resource] / James Bartleman.
"The novel follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is "stolen" from her family at the age of six and flown far away to a residential school on James Bay. She doesn't speak English but is punished for speaking her native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also "fed" to the school's attendant priest with an attraction to little girls.
Ten long years later, it is an emotionally devastated sixteen-year-old who finds her way home again, barely able to speak the only language her mother knows. Martha hangs out with other young people, and gives birth to a little boy, whom she calls Spider because of a web-shaped birthmark on his forehead. She loves him but has little knowledge or experience of good parenting. She seeks comfort and forgetfulness in alcohol, and Children's Aid authorities in Toronto, a place she has only heard of, take Spider away from her.
When she later gives birth to Raven, a daughter, Martha's mother insists on keeping her in Cat Lake when Martha decides to move to Toronto to find Spider. When Raven turns thirteen, she feels hopeless, rejected by her mother and not sure what, if anything, life has in store for her. She enters a suicide pact with three other teens and is eventually the only one of the group still alive.
As Long as the River Flow is filled with characters one cares deeply about. In spite of its sober theme, it is a story of hope, healing and embracing life."--BOOK JACKET.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780307398765 (electronic bk.)
- ISBN: 0307398765 (electronic bk.)
- Physical Description: 1 online resource (xiii, 250 p.) : 1 map.
- Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: Toronto : A.A. Knopf Canada, 2011.
Content descriptions
General Note: | "A novel"-- Cover. |
Formatted Contents Note: | Pt. One Early Years, 1956 -- 1991 -- 1. First Memories -- 2 Indian Residential School -- 3 Father Lionel Antoine -- 4 Returning Home -- 5 Change Comes to the Reserve -- pt. two Big City, 1991-2003 -- 6 Leaving for Toronto -- 7 Spider -- 8 New Beginnings -- 9 Different Worlds -- 10 Reconnecting -- pt. three Healing Circle, 2003 -- 11 Back to the Reserve -- 12. Spider and the River -- 13 In Search of Oblivion -- 14 Church -- 15 Healing Circle -- 16 Embracing Life. |
Source of Description Note: | Description based on print version record. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Sexual abuse victims > Fiction. Teenage mothers > Fiction. Canada > Fiction. |
Genre: | Electronic books. |
Other Formats and Editions
Electronic resources
- Baker & Taylor
Taken from her family in the Cat Lake First Nation at the age of six to a residential school, Martha finds herself punished for speaking her native language and abused by a priest, and when she returns home ten years later, she tries to find peace despite the anger she feels towards her mother. - Random House, Inc.
From the accomplished memoirist and former Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario comes a first novel of incredible heart and spirit for every Canadian.
The novel follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is "stolen" from her family at the age of six and flown far away to residential school. She doesn't speak English but is punished for speaking her native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also "fed" to the school's attendant priest with an attraction to little girls.
Ten long years later, Martha finds her way home again, barely able to speak her native tongue. The memories of abuse at the residential school are so strong that she tries to drown her feelings in drink, and when she gives birth to her beloved son, Spider, he is taken away by Children's Aid to Toronto. In time, she has a baby girl, Raven, whom she decides to leave in the care of her mother while she braves the bewildering strangeness of the big city to find her son and bring him home.