The Giller Prize-longlisted author of Avenue of Champions returns with a frenetic, propulsive crime thriller that doubles as a sharp critique of modern activism and challenges readers to consider what “Land Back” might really look like.
Meet Isidore “Ezzy” Desjarlais and Grey Ginther: two distant Métis cousins making the most of Grey’s uncle’s old trailer, passing their days playing endless games of cribbage and cracking cans of cheap beer in between. Grey, once a passionate advocate for change, has been hardened and turned cynical by an activist culture she thinks has turned performative and lazy. One night, though, she has a revelation, and enlists Ezzy, who is hopelessly devoted to her but eager to avoid the authorities after a life in and out of the group home system and jail, for a bold yet dangerous political mission: capture a herd of bison from a national park and set them free in downtown Edmonton, disrupting the churn of settler routine. But as Grey becomes increasingly single-minded in her newfound calling, their act of protest puts the pair and those close to them in peril, with devastating and sometimes fatal consequences.
For readers drawn to the electric storytelling of Morgan Talty and the taut register of Stephen Graham Jones, Conor Kerr’s Prairie Edge is at once a gripping, darkly funny caper and a raw reckoning with the wounds that persist across generations.
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Prairie Edge is a deeply introspective, philosophizing Indigenous Western that is filled with life, love, disaster, and freedom . . . . here we are rustled into trailer, reservation, university, foster care, and prison systems and the violence of imperialism is never once glossed over. Don’t be fooled, this novel also herds us into decolonial activism, sovereignty, and necessary criticisms all the while filled with ‘poets and dreamers’ and the roaring buckle of galloping Indigenous futurities. For fans of Michelle Good, Cody Caetano, and/or Jessica Johns—this book is for you!
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Joshua Whitehead, author of Making Love with the Land