From Our Editors
Tomson Highway is one of Canada's most talented
and distinguished playwrights, and a two-time winner of both the
Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award for The
Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.
Kiss of the Fur Queen is his highly
anticipated first novel, and it is the story of two boys born on a
snowy Cree reservation in northern Manitoba, and thrown into the
vastly different world of a Catholic boarding school. Both boys are
teased, renamed, assaulted and alienated, but all the while, the
trickster Fur Queen is there to keep a watchful eye on them. Deeply
moving, this is a story that you won't soon forget.
Reader's Guide
Kiss of the Fur Queen for me is a celebration of the Cree
lifestyle, culture and language. The Cree culture and way of life
is a unique and important part of Canadian culture, which needs to
be celebrated and preserved. I wanted to share this with a broader
audience, and encourage other Native writers to find their
voice.
At the same time as celebrating this culture, Kiss of the Fur
Queen is also a cry for its preservation. As Jeremiah and Gabriel
experience, an idyllic lifestyle can often be interrupted at a
young age by very destructive social forces. These forces have
serious repercussions on artistic communities, and I felt that this
story needed to be told to bring this to light and to try to put an
end to that loss. Writing this book was a personal catharsis for me
of that loss and, I hope, for the Native people and all artistic
communities. -- Tomson Highway
FOR DISCUSSION
1. The mythological figure of the Fur Queen is very prominent in
the story and continues to appear in various guises throughout.
What does this figure represent for the two boys?
2. Gabriel and Jeremiah react very differently to the sexual abuse
they endure. Discuss these reactions and what they suggest about
the boys' characters.
3. Cree is often described as a humorous, musical language, the
language of a culture that tries to find the joy in everything.
Highway mixes Cree with English throughout the text. Discuss the
ways in which the varying sounds, structures and vocabularies of
these two languages symbolize the gulf between cultures in the
novel.
4. Jeremiah and Gabriel find it difficult to adjust to city life
when they move to Winnipeg as teenagers. They are ostracized, made
to feel like outsiders in the only country they have ever known.
Discuss the similarities and differences between the experiences of
the Okimasis brothers and those of immigrants you have known coming
to Canada for the first time.
5. The Okimasis brothers are firmly connected to their roots in
Cree culture, and yet they leave their home on the reserve to join
'city life,' rarely to return. Discuss the difficulty of being true
to one's background, while living one's own modern life.
6. Jeremiah is keenly aware of the stereotypes assigned to Natives
and knows that some of those prejudices reflect aspects of Native
life. Jeremiah resists becoming the type of man a hostile society
expects him to be. Can stereotypes be self-fulfilling prophecies?
7. There are many different mythologies - Christian, Cree, Greek -
that weave through this story. Discuss the role these mythologies
play in the lives of the Okimasis brothers. Discuss the impact
different mythologies have on modern day literature and culture
generally.
8. A fundamental difference between Cree and English and the
worlds these two languages represent is that in Cree there is no
gender, no rigid male-female categories. Does Kiss of the Fur Queen
suggest what the imposition of a strict gender hierarchy would mean
for Native culture? Is it possible to read Gabriel's fate as
symbolic of this cultural destruction? What other novelists have
used disease as a metaphor for social disintegration?
From the Publisher
Born into a magical Cree world in snowy northern Manitoba, Champion
and Ooneemeetoo Okimasis are all too soon torn from their family
and thrust into the hostile world of a Catholic residential school.
Their language is forbidden, their names are changed to Jeremiah
and Gabriel, and both boys are abused by priests.
As young men, estranged from their own people and alienated from
the culture imposed upon them, the Okimasis brothers fight to
survive. Wherever they go, the Fur Queen--a wily, shape-shifting
trickster--watches over them with a protective eye. For Jeremiah
and Gabriel are destined to be artists. Through music and dance
they soar.
About the Author
Tomson Highway is a Cree from Brochet, in northern Manitoba. He is
the celebrated author of the plays The Rez Sisters and
Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won
Dora Mavor Moore Awards and Floyd S. Chalmers Awards. He holds
three honorary degrees and is a member of the Order of Canada.
Bookclub Guide
Tomson Highway is a Cree from Brochet, in northern Manitoba. He is
the celebrated author of the plays
The Rez Sisters and
Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won
Dora Mavor Moore Awards and Floyd S. Chalmers Awards. He holds
three honorary degrees and is a member of the Order of
Canada.
1. The mythological figure of the Fur Queen is very prominent in
the story and continues to appear in various guises throughout.
What does this figure represent for the two boys?
2. Gabriel and Jeremiah react very differently to the sexual
abuse they endure. Discuss these reactions and what they suggest
about the boys'' characters.
3. Cree is often described as a humorous, musical language, the
language of a culture that tries to find the joy in everything.
Highway mixes Cree with English throughout the text. Discuss the
ways in which the varying sounds, structures and vocabularies of
these two languages symbolize the gulf between cultures in the
novel.
4. Jeremiah and Gabriel find it difficult to adjust to city life
when they move to Winnipeg as teenagers. They are ostracized, made
to feel like outsiders in the only country they have ever known.
Discuss the similarities and differences between the experiences of
the Okimasis brothers and those of immigrants you have known coming
to Canada for the first time.
5. The Okimasis brothers are firmly connected to their roots in
Cree culture, and yet they leave their home on the reserve to join
''city life,'' rarely to return. Discuss the difficulty of being
true to one''s background, while living one''s own modern life.
6. Jeremiah is keenly aware of the stereotypes assigned to
Natives and knows that some of those prejudices reflect aspects of
Native life. Jeremiah resists becoming the type of man a hostile
society expects him to be. Can stereotypes be self-fulfilling
prophecies?
7. There are many different mythologies-Christian, Cree,
Greek-that weave through this story. Discuss the role these
mythologies play in the lives of the Okimasis brothers. Discuss the
impact different mythologies have on modern day literature and
culture generally.
8. A fundamental difference between Cree and English and the
worlds these two languages represent is that in Cree there is no
gender, no rigid male-female categories. Does Kiss of the Fur Queen
suggest what the imposition of a strict gender hierarchy would mean
for Native culture? Is it possible to read Gabriel''s fate as
symbolic of this cultural destruction? What other novelists have
used disease as a metaphor for social disintegration?
