ENG 222 & 322: Canadian Literature: A Guide to Indigenous Canadian Literature

In March 2010 the Canadian Literature Centre hosted award-winning novelist and storyteller Eden Robinson at the 4th annual Henry Kreisel Lecture. Robinson shared an intimate look into the intricacies of family, culture, and place through her talk, "The Sasquatch at Home." Robinson's disarming honesty and wry irony shine through her depictions of her and her mother's trip to Graceland, the potlatch where she and her sister received their Indian names, how her parents first met in Bella Bella (Waglisla, British Columbia) and a wilderness outing where she and her father try to get a look at b'gwus, the Sasquatch.

Set in Vancouver's downtown east side, "Blood sports" tells the story of two cousins caught in a world of drugs, extortion and prostitution who suddenly find themselves pawns in a larger and more even dangerous game.

Jimmy is a prospective Olympic swimmer, seventeen years old and on the edge of proposing to his beautiful girlfriend Karaoke. He has just gone missing at sea. As his elder sister, Lisa, faces possible disaster, she chain-smokes and drifts into thoughts of their lives so far. She recalls the time when she and Jimmy saw the sasquatch, or b’gwus – and this sighting introduces the novel's fascinating undercurrent of characters from the spirit world. These ghostly presences may strike the reader as mysterious or frightening, but they provide Lisa with guidance through a difficult coming of age.

This is a world in which fast food, banged-up cars and the grunge of modern adolescence barely camouflage the dark extremes of sex, fear and desire — and the longing for love.