Tracy Hetherington photo
In conversation with My Indian Summer author Joseph Kakwinokanasum By Marian Dodds (she/her), retired teacher, Vancouver Marian: Welcome Jo. When we met in 2018 in the Creative Non-Fiction Cohort at Simon Fraser University Writer’s Studio, I found your writing compelling. Four years later, you’ve launched your first novel, My Indian Summer, a fictionalized story emerging from your lived experience. Congratulations! Let’s start with what it’s about. Joseph: Twelve-year-old Hunter, coming of age in the late 1970s in a tiny, predominantly Indigenous town in northern BC, is desperate to escape a family still reeling from the aftershocks of colonization. It’s an entertaining, adventurous story of survival, about how one ingenious kid, using humour, street smarts, and allies, refuses to be defeated by poverty and racism. Marian: Your story begins with Hunter’s enraged mother escaping with her kids to northern BC to evade social workers. Three years later, it’s 1979 and we meet Hunter at twelve, hiding his odd job money in a Crown Royal bag in his mattress and plotting his own escape from his abusive home. After several unsuccessful schemes to earn money in small town Red Rock, Hunter and pals Jacob and Eric are hoping to cash in during the Labour Day rodeo weekend, when things take a dangerous turn. A thread of humour propels readers though your high-stakes drama. Tell me about that. Joseph: Laughing at the human condition is a survival strategy. It can be dark and ironic. Many of the funniest scenes in My Indian Summer occur when the three boys are together, with Hunter and Jacob teasing Eric, who is white, about his unbelievable naiveté and entitlement. Humour can be self-deprecating too. For example, when the three boys are hiding in the woods and Hunter pisses on his shoes in the dark. 34 TEACHER Jan/Feb 2023