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Christian Dittus
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FIVE LITTLE INDIANS

Michelle Good

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.

Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn't want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can't stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.

Michelle Good is a Cree writer and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. After working for Indigenous organizations for twenty-five years and advocating for residential school survivors, she obtained a law degree. She earned her MFA in creative writing at UBC while still practicing law. Her poems, short stories and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada. Michelle Good now lives in the southern Okanagan in BC.
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Published 2020-04-01 by HarperCollins Canada

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David Cronenberg Producer Martin Katz to Adapt ‘Five Little Indians' Indigenous Trauma Novel (Exclusive). Cree Metis writer Shannon Masters will write and showrun the limited-series take on Michelle Good's novel about the enduring ordeal faced by five survivors of Canada's deadly residential schools system. --- Hollywood Reporter

Winner of the annual national reading contest, CANADA READS, 2022. The theme this year was "The One Book to Connect Us."” Read more...

WINNER: Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction WINNER: Amazon First Novel Awards Finalist: Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist: Atwood Gibson Writers Trust Prize Finalist: BC & Yukon Book Prize Shortlist: Indigenous Voices Awards Finalist: Kobo Emerging Author Prize National Bestseller; A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year; A CBC Best Book of the Year; An Apple Best Book of the Year; A Kobo Best Book of the Year; An Indigo Best Book of the Year