National Bestseller

Winner of the 2019 OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award

Shortlisted for the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award

Shortlisted for the 2019/20 First Nation Communities READ Indigenous Literature Award

2020 Burlington Library Selection; 2020 Hamilton Reads One Book One Community Selection; 2020 Region of Waterloo One Book One Community Selection; 2019 Ontario Library Association Ontario Together We Read Program Selection; 2019 Women's National Book Association's Great Group Reads; 2019 Amnesty International Book Club Pick

January 2020 Reddit r/bookclub pick of the month

This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival and will leave readers breathless. -- Publishers Weekly

Rice seamlessly injects Anishinaabe language into the dialogue and creates a beautiful rendering of the natural world ... This title will appeal to fans of literary science-fiction akin to Cormac McCarthy as well as to readers looking for a fresh voice in indigenous fiction. -- Booklist

A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow.

The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.

Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.

Waubgeshig Rice's stories are good medicine. Moon of the Turning Leaves is a restorative balm for my spirit. -- Angeline Boulley, New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper's Daughter

In this gripping stand-alone literary thriller set in the world of the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, a scouting party led by Evan Whitesky ventures into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout.

For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the power failure that brought about societal collapse. Since then they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home.

Evan Whitesky volunteers to lead a mission south to explore the possibility of moving back to their original homeland, the land where the birch trees grow by the big water in the Great Lakes region. Accompanied by five others, including his daughter Nangohns, an expert archer, Evan begins a journey that will take him to where the Anishinaabe were once settled, near the devastated city of Gibson, a land now being reclaimed by nature.

But it isn't just the wilderness that poses a threat: they encounter other survivors. Those who, like the Anishinaabe, live in harmony with the land, and those who use violence.

In the winter of 1989, Eva Gibson is a university student living in downtown Toronto. She's homesick and anxious to finish her education and return home to serve her Anishinaabe community. Then tragedy strikes and it becomes the Gibson family's legacy. Back on the rez, Eva's brothers and sister struggle to cope with their losses and redefine their legacy. Some turn to ceremony; some turn to vice. All the while, they contend with a creeping sentiment of revenge.

«Elle regarda autour et remarqua qu'ils taient au fond de la ruelle. Dehors, dans la rue, la lueur des r verb res peignait la neige fra che d'un orange de cantaloup. C' tait une certaine distance et elle ne se rappelait pas tre venue si loin. Elle tourna son regard vers Mark et vit seulement la faible lueur orange sur le c t gauche de son visage. Soudain, elle sentit sa bouche ouverte, mouill e autour de la sienne, tandis que Mark lui crasait le dos contre le mur. Sa force lui coupa le souffle et elle ne pouvait pas respirer. Elle ne pouvait pas crier, et elle se d battait pour mettre ses bras entre eux quand elle le sentit fourrer sa main entre ses jambes. Son coeur battait tout rompre et la panique la reprit. Mais c' tait une panique beaucoup plus intense et pouvantable.
Son instinct la fit lui donner un coup de genou dans les couilles. C' tait le coup le
plus fort qu'elle ait jamais donn . ...]
-- Fucking indienne cria-t-il en lui cognant d'un poing puissant la joue gauche.