Moon of the Turning Leaves

 Moon of the Turning Leaves, Waubgeshig Rice

I don't read many apocalyptic stories, I find them too bleak and too stressful (and sometimes too prescient). I read Waubgeshig Rice's first "Moon" novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, about a Native American community in Ontario, where the phones and power going out is first seen as a nuisance. Gradually it becomes clear that something very serious has happened, and the community leadership tries to organize resources and ensure everyone gets what they need to survive until the power is restored. But that never happens, and as stores dwindle, outsiders arrive, asking for sanctuary and help, and the community begins to fracture. A group led by a young man, Evan Whitesky, returns to their Anishinaabe traditions and older ways of life to try to hold the community together. He is also trying to protect his family, including his two young children.

Soon after I read that book, I learned there would be a sequel, and I immediately put it on my reading list. The second "Moon" book takes place twelve years later. The survivors have left their small town and built another community on the shores of a lake. The story opens with the birth of a child, Evan and his wife Nicole's first grandchild. But the small settlement is under strain. There are fewer of the animals and fish that they depend on, and the plants they harvest for food and medicine are failing. One member points out that their people were not meant to settle permanently, that to do so wears out the land and its resources. He challenges the community to seek out a new home, perhaps to the south, near the Great Lakes, from where their ancestors were removed.

Evan volunteers to make the journey, as does his daughter Nanghons. Four others join them on the trek, on foot, for which they have only outdated maps and people's memories. From their travels, they learn more about what happened twelve years ago, and how it is affecting the land and the people left behind. It is a difficult and dangerous trip, and I did have to set the book down at one point, when the two women in the party are threatened with sexual assault (which does not happen). This book has a high body count, including one suicide, both on-page and off.

The book ends with another jump forward in time, eleven years this time. It does give a sense of closure to the story, but I would have liked to read more about how the characters got to and through that time. It felts like I had walked with them on their long journey, which ended abruptly. I wanted to know more about them. I did see this labeled as "Moon Book 2," which made me wonder if the author has stories to tell of those eleven years. If so, I'll be reading them.