First Wives Club Book Review

 First Wives Club Written By Lee Maracle

Review by Christine McFarlane

Renowned First Nations author-Lee Maracle has another new book out. Maracle’s new book “First Wives Club” has just been released by Theytus Books.

Lee Maracle is a member of the Sto:loh Nation of British Columbia and has had a career that has spanned a period of more than thirty years. She has produced many Native publications in literature that include novels, short fiction, and essays. Some of her acclaimed include Ravensong, Sundogs, Bent Box, I Am Woman, Will’s Gardens, Daughters Are Forever and Bobbi Lee, a legendary first book published more than thirty years ago. She has also co-edited My Home As I Remember and Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures, and her work has also appeared in many anthologies.

Maracle’s new book “First Wives Club” is an amusing collection that takes you on a journey through various life experiences. Experiences as an Aboriginal woman, university professor, and activist and lastly as a single mother.

One of her stories in the First Wives Club titled “Goodby Snauq” speaks of the mythical Raven and how the Raven has shaped us and built us for transformation. Transformation that Maracle relays in story about the history of her people and the struggles they had to endure from colonial contact- the disenfranchisement and “dredging and altering” of her homeland and how they “could not gain citizenship or manage their own affairs” unless they forewent who they were: Squamish, T’sleil Waututh, Musqueam, Cree or whatever nation” they came from.

 Maracle’s ability to weave stories together is amazing and this collection does not disappoint. She writes each story uniquely and addresses such issues as female sexuality and creative empowerment, loss, strained relations, and fuses all genres of writing in a tone that is candid and holds nothing back.

First Wives Club is now available at bookstores and through Theytus Books. Check it out you will not be disappointed!