“Truth & Bright Water”
by Thomas King
Published: August 2000
ISBN: 0006481965

(Updated: September 19, 2005.)

From the Publisher…

With a plethora of superb reviews and upcoming publication in the US, Thomas King’s latest work affirms him as one of our wittiest and wisest writers. Truth & Bright Water is the tale of two young cousins and one long summer. Tecumseh and Lum live in Truth, a small American town, and Bright Water, the reserve across the border and over the river. Family is the only reason most of the people stay in the towns, and yet old secrets and new mysteries keep pulling the more nomadic residents back to the fold.

Monroe Swimmer, famous Indian artist, returns to live in the old church with the hope of painting it into the prairie landscape and re-establishing the buffalo population. Tecumseh’s Aunt Cassie has come back too, already arguing with his mother. Why has his mother given Cassie a suitcase full of baby clothes? And why is Lum interested only in winning the Indian Days race?

Tecumseh has more questions than anyone will answer, until the Indian Days festival arrives and the mysteries of the summer collide in love, betrayal and reconciliation. Equally plainspoken and poetic, comic and poignant, Truth & Bright Water is a crackling good story that resonates with universal truths.

Wonderful character portrayal in a book that is what? Even and flowing and spiraling somehow. I feel as though I would recognize the countryside, the paths were I ever to stumble onto them. And, I would so like to “not see” the church. (Reading the book to understand this is, on its own, so worth it :o)

I give this book a four out of five hearts on my “can’t-wait-to-get-back-to-it” scale.