Eden Robinson’s debut novel Monkey Beach is a coming-of-age story that has elements of horror and magic realism, but is deeply rooted in the writer’s own Indigenous Haisla and Heiltsuk culture. The education that the narrator, Lisamarie, receives from her uncle and grandmother on the lands and waters (both salt and fresh) of the Pacific Northwest is a powerful counterbalance to the trauma of the residential school that has damaged the community so painfully. And her own search for her brother, Jimmy, leads Lisa into the past and even—like Dante’s narrator—into the spirit world of the dead.

Content warning: In the main discussion of this episode, we mention violence, death, and sexual assualt.