‘Creative beading (and thinking)’

Wild People Quiet
by Tara Gereaux

Toronto: Scribner Canada, 2026
$25.99 / 9781668060568

Reviewed by W.H. New

*

Tara Gereaux draws the title of her compelling novel from a comment Sir John A. Macdonald made in 1868, that Riel and his people were troublesome, and that it would take “considerable management to keep those wild people quiet.” Riel himself shows up only on the periphery of Gereaux’s narrative (as does Tommy Douglas, cited as a figure with still other social aspirations), and while Macdonald shows up not at all, the policies of his federal government do, for they are deemed responsible for the land grabs, the marginalization, and the racist attitudes that mark so much about the western expansion into Saskatchewan.

So this is a political novel—not especially about policy (though policies always underlie the characters’ behaviour). Policies drive the decisions the characters make—for and against exclusion and employment, recognizing or refusing to recognize the Métis as a community. As a people. With land. Political policies have also shaped the attitudes that the novel probes—judgments that evaluate the worth of people by what they look like, how they dress, and where they live. Wild People Quiet takes readers quietly in hand and shows them—not ‘tells them’—what it was like to face bias, and what it might be like if biases can be overcome. It’s an absorbing book.

Absorbing—take your time with it. A fast read will miss the importance of its details: the details are like the beads that the Mêtis have traditionally decorated with—“decorated”: meaning “told the stories of the world,” not merely used as trimming.

Wild People Quiet tells two stories, one about a traditional Métis family during the earliest years of the twentieth century, the other a story of Florence, who’s a girl in 1909 but by the postwar 1940s has become an efficient small town secretary for an insurance company. The early years reveal the closeness between Florence and her brother Clancy. The later years reveal that Florence has become successful not because of her traditional upbringing but because she has been so fixed on achieving a conventional success that she has denied her Métis identity and cut herself off from her brother, her aunt, and her heritage. She invents a dead husband so as to change her name (to a widowed “Mrs. Banks,” an identity that shouts propriety) and win acceptance among the white (English/Ukrainian) townspeople. She bleaches her hair, turns away from her Métis roots, works hard and proves herself to be tidy and efficient, collects fashionable bric-a-brac, lives in a house, and puts on a conventional display.

And then her brother Clancy comes to town. He’s a good man but as far as the town’s concerned he’s disreputable. Bootlegging. Clothes. Colour.  Florence denies him. But once she’s seen talking with him, gossip spreads, and her masquerade cannot stand. What happens then is the subject of the main part of the book, and by this time the reader is invested in Florence’s dilemma—is she admirable or is she not? Can she be both? Can she figure out what to do?

I’ll leave the intricacies of the latter half of the narrative for the reader’s discovery: I’ll say only that the RCMP, the townspeople, Clancy, Florence’s aged and artistic Michif-speaking aunt, the manipulators of insurance and real estate, and the closed (or is it closed?) circle of matronly townswomen all have roles to play. 

The 1909 sections of the book tell stories of ambition and Métis playfulness. They convey the mix of pleasure and want that characterizes a lot of childhoods. The 1940s sections tell of more recent deprivations, hard work, close-mindedness (biased behaviour that’s been trained by custom more than by thought), and a kind of postwar desire for flair. I recognize these 1940s scenes—I lived through them. They were years when people needed help but didn’t always get it, sometimes refused to accept it, were sometimes victimized by gossip as well as by inequalities, and were often tight-lipped about change.

What draws me more into this novel is the technical skill of the author (Saltus), who resided in Vancouver for two decades before a return to southern Saskatchewan. The small town is believable, the grassland landscapes evocative. And everywhere the prose hints at what we should be seeing but don’t always see. Cumulatively, the text reveals the town’s preoccupation with colour and with what “outfit to wear.” “You look wan today” is more than a casual observation, as is “I always thought you had a wild streak.” Florence’s concern to keep her bleach bottle “under the counter” hints at both the bootlegging still to come and the degree to which everyone—Florence, her boss, even the justice system itself—lies too easily.

This is a town “without history,” the narrative records, as though this is a flat truth, but for a reason: it’s the kind of ‘truth’ that doesn’t recognize anything except a current definition of acceptability. What might happen, then, if the truths come apart? Might even the biases begin to unravel?

This is where it’s important to see the beading. Métis traditional beading is something Florence’s old auntie practices and that Florence herself has learned and forgotten. Really forgotten, or can it come back? That’s a critical question. “Lies are like beads,” we are advised: all it takes is for one to come loose and the whole falls apart. So “look at the underside” of a beaded cloth, that’s the part that’s not on show, but it’s where the strength comes from. In the closing chapters of the book, Florence takes up beading again, but unable or unwilling to follow the old patterns, she seems as defiant as dandelions, creating anew. 

Maybe Florence is not the only one to learn that there’s a difference between forgetting and not wanting to remember. Maybe her story tells us that creative beading (and thinking) can shape a future that’s an improvement on an age that was hiding from life.

W.H. (William) New has written five books for children, including The Year I Was Grounded, and he has written widely on short fiction in Canada, Australasia, and elsewhere. His most recent books include Neighbours and In the Plague Year, reviewed here by Gary Geddes. [Editor’s note: William New has reviewed recent books by Elinor Florence, John MacLachlan Gray, Astrid Blodgett, Danial Neil, Yasuko Thanh, Carrie Mac, Corinna Chong, Robert Chursinoff, Harold Macy, Paul Sunga, Emily St. John Mandel, and Tamas Dobozy for BCR.]

*

The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster