Thomas King. INDIANS ON VACATION. HarperCollins, 2020.
Stephen Leacock Award Winner for Humour, and much much more. Funny, ironic, and endearing. A couple from Guelph, Mimi the artist and Bird, the journalist, retired, are on a quest for a lost sacred bundle stolen by Mimi's uncle when he ran away to join the Wild West Show. The Quest has been the couple's excuse to travel, to retrace Uncle's itinerary as documented in the postcards he sent home. Travel. Ancestry. An intimate long-term relationship. Mimi is positive and encouraging and knows her man. Bird is grumpy, obssessed with his decaying body, and travels with an entourage of "problems" to which he has given names, Kitty=catastrophizing. D & D = Depression and Despair. Eugene = self-loathing, etc. The reader fears some catastrophy and recognizes the typical tourist challenges of self-guided travel. So many good conversations between Bird & Mimi, Bird and fellow travellers, and Bird and his "Issues".
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