The Marrow Thieves

The Marrow Thieves is a young adult dystopian novel by Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline, published on September 1, 2017, by Cormorant Books through its Dancing Cat Books imprint.[3]

The Marrow Thieves
First edition cover art
AuthorCherie Dimaline
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction; Dystopian
PublisherCormorant Books Incorporated[1]
Publication date
September 1, 2017[2]
Pages231[2]
ISBN978-1-77086-486-3
Followed byHunting by Stars 

Plot

After climate change decimates the existing social order, most people lose the ability to dream. This produces catastrophic psychological results. Indigenous people, who can still dream, are hunted for their bone marrow, which is used to create a serum to treat dreamlessness. Francis, nicknamed Frenchie, loses both parents to “Recruiters” from the Canadian government. Recruiters kidnap Indigenous people and take them to schools where they are eventually murdered. Frenchie’s brother Mitch allows himself to be captured by Recruiters so that Frenchie can escape.

Frenchie falls in with a group of Indigenous survivors. Miigwans, the group’s de facto leader, was unable to save his husband Isaac from the schools, but he cares for the other members of the group and teaches them survival skills. Frenchie falls in love with Rose, another teenage survivor; they grow closer to each other throughout their journey.

The group journeys north towards James Bay, seeking solitude and safety. They meet another another pair of Indigenous people, Travis and Linc. These two betray Frenchie’s group, selling them out to Recruiters. Frenchie’s youngest companion, seven-year-old RiRi, is killed in the struggle. Enraged, Frenchie shoots and kills Travis. The group’s oldest member, Minerva, sacrifices herself to pursuing Recruiters so the others can survive. Frenchie convinces the others to try to rescue Minerva. They meet with another group of survivors, which include Frenchie’s father.

At a school, Minerva finds a way to use the power of her own dreams to counteract the Recruiters’ machinery. She burns the school down and kills many Recruiters. The government plans to bring Minerva to the Capital for research. Frenchie and his companions ambush the convoy carrying Minerva. Recruiters shoot and kill Minerva rather than allow her to be rescued.

They discover one further group of survivors, including Miig’s husband Isaac. Miig and Isaac are finally reunited. Frenchie and the others learn that dreaming in an Indigenous language such as Cree is the key to fighting against the Recruiters and their machinery.

Development

According to the Toronto Star, working with Indigenous youth inspired Dimaline to write a novel in which those youth could envision themselves as protagonists, as people with a future. She chose a teenage boy as the narrator because of the emotional intensity she could envision the character feeling and expressing in his actions.[4] She wanted to reach both Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth at an age when they could understand these themes.[5]

Dimaline treats the difficult topic of genocide as she wanted readers to know that such events happened to Indigenous people in the past. Dimaline said that she wants readers to come away saying “I would never let that happen again.”[6] The author incorporates issues of climate disaster and political turmoil into the novel,[7] which takes place approximately 40 years into the future.[8] Dimaline has also said that she wrote the book in order to let people know that everyone needs to respect different people's stories.[5]

Reception

Critical response

Critical reception for The Marrow Thieves has been positive.

The novel received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, which stated "Though the presence of the women in the story is downplayed, Miigwans is a true hero; in him Dimaline creates a character of tremendous emotional depth and tenderness, connecting readers with the complexity and compassion of Indigenous people."[9]

Writing for Quill & Quire, Jessica Rose wrote that Dimaline's book "thrusts readers into the complex lives of rich and nuanced characters forced to navigate a world that too closely resembles our own." Rose also praised the novel's treatment of the "heavy subject matter," stating that the author's "graceful, almost fragile, prose ... provid[es] a beautiful undercurrent to a world that seems to have been damaged beyond repair." The reviewer also praised book’s coming-of-age narrative, most notably Frenchie’s budding romance Rose.[10]

In The Globe and Mail, Shannon Ozirny wrote that "Dimaline takes one of the most well-known tropes in YA – the dystopia – and uses it to draw explicit parallels between the imagined horrors of a fictional future and the true historical horrors of colonialism and residential schools" and called the book "beautifully written as it is shocking and painful."[11]

Jully Black of Canada Reads 2018 praised and appreciated the author's exploration into the theme of chosen family, where the characters have come together without blood ties and created their own pieced-together family.[12]

Awards

The novel won the Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature at the 2017 Governor General's Awards,[13] the 2018 Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature,[14] the 2018 Sunburst Award for young adult fiction,[15] and the 2017 Kirkus Prize in the young adult literature category.[16] It was one of the books competing in CBC's 2018 Canada Reads competition,[17] listed in The Globe and Mail's 100 best books of 2017[18] and was a nominee for the 2018 White Pine Award.[19] Pilleurs de rêves, a French translation of the novel by Madeleine Stratford, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English to French translation at the 2019 Governor General's Awards.[20]

Sequel

A sequel, Hunting By Stars, was published on October 19, 2021. This sequel continues the storyline of French, now seventeen, and his found family.[21]

References
  1. Reese, Debbie (9 June 2017). "The Marrow Thieves". socialjusticebooks.org.
  2. "The Marrow Thieves". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  3. "Cherie Dimaline: 'My community is where my stories come from and it's also where my responsibilities lie'". The Globe and Mail. June 30, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
  4. Dundas, Deborah (November 6, 2017). "Cherie Dimaline: Hopes and dreams in the apocalypse". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved October 22, 2021.
  5. Henley, James (July 7, 2017). "The message YA novelist Cherie Dimaline has for young Indigenous readers". CBC. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  6. "How Cherie Dimaline found hope in a dystopian future". CBC. October 2, 2017. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  7. "Canada Reads 2018: Cherie Dimaline on The Marrow Thieves". curio.ca. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  8. Reclaiming Lost Dreams, retrieved 2021-10-22
  9. "The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline". Kirkus Reviews. July 1, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
  10. Rose, Jessica (August 14, 2017). "The Marrow Thieves". Quill & Quire. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
  11. Ozirny, Shannon (September 22, 2017). "Review: Heather Smith's The Agony of Bun O'Keefe, Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves and S.K. Ali's Saints and Misfits". The Globe and Mail.
  12. "We're dealing with a society of children": Cherie Dimaline meets Jully Black | Canada Reads 2018, retrieved 2021-10-22
  13. "Governor General Literary Awards announced: Joel Thomas Hynes wins top English fiction prize". CBC News, November 1, 2017.
  14. "Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves wins $12K CODE Burt Award for Indigenous young adult literature". CBC Books, November 29, 2018.
  15. "2018 Sunburst Winners | The Sunburst Award Society". www.sunburstaward.org. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  16. "Cherie Dimaline wins U.S. Kirkus Prize for The Marrow Thieves". CBC Books, November 3, 2017.
  17. "Meet the Canada Reads 2018 contenders". CBC Books. January 30, 2018. Retrieved January 30, 2018.
  18. "The Globe 100: These are the best books of 2017". Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  19. "White Pine™ Fiction Nominees 2018". www.accessola.org. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  20. "Three Nova Scotians among 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards finalists". Truro News, October 2, 2019.
  21. "Hunting by Stars (A Marrow Thieves Novel)|Hardcover". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
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