As the line between realist fiction and dystopia becomes blurrier and blurrier, it is natural for writers to turn to dystopia and science fiction to analyze the present. Every people has their catastrophes, but few are as apocalyptic as the histories of our first nations. I was eager to read The Marrow Thieves for that reason. I wanted to see what a skilled Native American fiction writer would do with the tropes of dystopia and science fiction.
The premise of The Marrow Thieves is simple and magnetic: climate change has nearly destroyed the world and everybody but native people have lost the power to dream. Government forces have turned to harvesting natives’ bone marrow and natives everywhere are either on the run or collaborating with government forces. The novel begins with an epigraph from The Road by Cormac McCarthy, an obvious model and inspiration for Dimaline, as The Marrow Thieves follows a ragtag group of native youth under the leadership of their elders, an elderly woman named Minerva and a gay man named Miig, all of whom scavenge and trudge their way through a wasteland of abandoned cities and wildernesses, avoiding strangers and heading toward the ever mythical North, where they hear they will be safe from the bone-harvesting white people. The action in the tale picks up rather quick, as the first scenes narrate the kidnapping of Mitch, the brother of our protagonist, Frenchie by government forces.
If the metaphor of white people stealing dreams from native peoples seems heavy-handed, perhaps it is. I have no problem with it because it’s too true to resist.
One of the things I appreciate most about The Marrow Thieves is for its unabashed lingering on moments of joy, no matter how temporary. Take the opening lines of the book, for example: “Mitch was smiling so big his back teeth shone in the soft light of the solar-powered lamp we’d scavenged from someone’s shed. ‘Check it out.’ He held a bag of Doritos between us — a big bag, too.” This opener rejects the oft-repeated dictum that writers ought to begin their stories immediately with conflict. Instead, Dimaline grounds us in the wholesome and juvenile joy of Doritos. Elsewhere, the tender joys of adolescent love make Frenchie wisely wonder, “How could anything be as bad as it was when this moment existed in the span of eternity? How could i have fear when this girl would allow me this close? How could anything matter but this small miracle of having someone I could love?” During times as revolting and fatalistic as now, this gem can provide much needed comfort to those whipped and whittled by today’s challenges.
At the same time, the traumas in this story are not easily overcome. One of my favorite moments, indeed, one of the most skillfully wrought moments is a scene where a member of their group rediscovers a long-lost family member. Although the reunion is joyous, it’s also incredibly painful and continues to be, as the characters process their grief and loss.
Though the story mainly follows Frenchie, it is narrated in a shifting first-person perspective and includes first-person narration from Miig and Wab. Miig’s portions especially read like oral histories, shared around a hearth, filled with encouraging histories of native resilience to inspire the youngsters to keep on pushing. Here, I did wish Dimaline would have done more to differentiate her characters’ voices, but at least on a content level, I have nothing to complain about. In time, I began to grow close to the cast of characters, turning pages easily and churning my teeth with anticipation.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in YA literature, Native literature, science fiction, and dystopia.