The Strangers

The Strangers tells the story of four generations of a Métis family (the “Strangers” of the title), as told in rotating POVs by four women of the family (a grandmother, her daughter, and two teenaged sisters from the third generation). It wasn’t until after I finished this that I realised that one of these teenagers was a central character in Katherena Vermette’s last novel (The Break) — and while it isn’t necessary to have read one before the other, I had some questions cleared up once I made that connection. Once again, Vermette has created a roster of incredibly real characters whose stories touched my heart (I was in tears, more than once, over moments of simple human connection), and once again, she has taught me what it is like to live as a member of the urban Métis community of Winnipeg — the pressures, stresses, and prejudices unique to this particular racialised group — without me, as a citizen of the dominant, settler culture of Canada, feeling blamed or vilified. The Strangers touched me emotionally, taught me intellectually, and was a satisfying literary journey; this is everything I love in a book.

This book is spectacular! If you loved The Break you will not want to miss Vermette's second novel! The Strangers is the story of a Métis family set in the North End of Winnipeg, told in alternating narratives by three generations of Stranger women. It is a raw, heart rending story, both rich and at times brutally honest, revealing its intricacies slowly and with deep honour for the fractured, seemingly broken characters.

Elsie and her two daughters are fighting to survive in a system that sets them up to fail. This is not a happy story. It is a sprawling story of derailed dreams, drug addiction, children in care, prison, entrenched systemic racism, and all the ways we let each other down. And yet it isn't devoid of hope, of love, of small beautiful moments of deep connectedness amongst all the pain.

Vermette's characters are so well drawn you will at times forget the story is fiction. A truly fantastic author! By far one of the best books I have read this year.

I finished one of my most anticipated books of the year last night and it did not disappoint.

Told from alternating POVs of two sisters, their mother and their grandmother of a Métis family with the last name of Stranger. Phoenix is serving a sentence in a juvenile institution and her sister begins the book in one of the foster care homes she has been in. Elsie is battling her demons and trying to fight an addiction in the middle of a town where she frequents the same people, places and things. - a recipe for an uphill battle. Margaret is estranged from her daughter and learns of a new birth in the family from her mother. All of these characters will have to have to move boulders from their way to push past what they have endured and come out whole.

The Strangers is a companion book to The Break (published in 2016). I read The Break in February of 2017 and while bits of it have stayed with me, including the experience of reading it, details have been forgotten. It is not necessary to have read The Break first but I think it adds to layers within The Strangers. I wish I had reread The Break more recently.

I am very thankful for the family tree at the beginning of the book to help me keep the multitude of characters straight. There are a couple of names that belong to two characters and thus really helped.

Themes of both connection and estrangement, intergenerational experience, trauma, loss and tradition flow through the story. The story is told over five years and includes the current pandemic within them subtly.

The characters are often set up to fail by systems. One example was the comments made by the character Elsie in the novel who talks about the requirement of a home for the system to give her her children but to get a home you need the children who are going to live there first. An impossible situation.

Motherhood and its many joys and frustrations was tackled expertly. The character of Margaret had some especially difficult views for me. It is not until later in the novel where we are told by her uncle Toby where Margaret comes from and how she is different than she appears. I cried during several scenes in this book and most of them involved children.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinhamishhamilton for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. The Strangers publishes September 28, 2021.