Medicine Walk - by Richard Wagamese

Book Synopsis

"A novel about the role of stories in our lives, those we tell ourselves about ourselves and those we agree to live by." --Globe and Mail

When Franklin Starlight is called to visit his father, he has mixed emotions. Raised by the old man he was entrusted to soon after his birth, Frank is haunted by the brief and troubling moments he has shared with his father, Eldon. When he finally travels by horseback to town, he finds Eldon on the edge of death, decimated from years of drinking.

The two undertake a difficult journey into the mountainous backcountry, in search of a place for Eldon to die and be buried in the warrior way. As they travel, Eldon tells his son the story of his own life--from an impoverished childhood to combat in the Korean War and his shell-shocked return. Through the fog of pain, Eldon relates to his son these desolate moments, as well as his life's fleeting but nonetheless crucial moments of happiness and hope, the sacrifices made in the name of love. And in telling his story, Eldon offers his son a world the boy has never seen, a history he has never known.

Review Quotes

"Wagamese has penned a complex, rugged, and moving father-son novel. His muscular prose and spare tone complement this gem of a narrative.".--Publishers Weekly [STARRED review]

"Wagamese is a keen observer, sketching places ("stars in the thick purple swaddle of the sky") or people ("He leaned when he walked, canted at a hard angle to the right as though gravity worked with different properties on him") elegantly, economically, all while gracefully employing literary insight to deftly dissect blood ties lingering in fractured families. A powerful novel of hard men in hard country reminiscent of Jim Harrison's Legends of the Fall.--Kirkus

"Richard Wagamese is a born storyteller."
--Louise Erdrich

"Richard Wagamese has become a master. This brilliant novel (Medicine Walk) is his heart song, his crowning achievement thus far."
--Joseph Boyden

"A deeply felt and profoundly moving novel, written in the kind of sure, clear prose that brings to mind the work of the great North American masters like Steinbeck. But Wagamese's voice and vision are also completely his own, as is the important and powerful story he has to tell."
--Jane Urquhart

"Medicine Walk is a masterpiece, a work of art that explores human interconnectedness with a level of artistry so superb that the personal becomes eternal."
--National Post

"This is very much a novel about the role of stories in our lives, those we tell ourselves about ourselves and those we agree to live by . . . Wagamese understands that the stories we don't tell are as important as the ones we do . . . But Medicine Walk is also testament to the redemptive power of love and compassion."
--Globe and Mail