With striking originality and precision, Eden Robinson, the
Giller-shortlisted author of the classic Monkey Beach and winner of
the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award, blends humor with heartbreak in
this compelling coming-of-age novel. Everyday teen existence meets
indigenous beliefs, crazy family dynamics, and cannibalistic river
otter.... The exciting first novel in her Trickster trilogy.
Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who
sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who's often wasted and wielding
some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much, and he does
make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess, but he's also a
kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch
over people more than twice his age, and he can't rely on anyone for
consistent love and support, except for his flatulent pit bull, Baby
Killer (he calls her Baby) - and now she's dead.
Jared can't count on his mom to stay sober and stick around to take care
of him. He can't rely on his dad to pay the bills and support his new
wife and step-daughter. Jared is only 16 but feels like he is the one
who must stabilize his family's life, even look out for his elderly
neighbors. But he struggles to keep everything afloat...and sometimes he
blacks out. And he puzzles over why his maternal grandmother has never
liked him, why she says he's the son of a trickster, that he isn't
human. Mind you, ravens speak to him - even when he's not stoned.
You think you know Jared, but you don't.
