It is early winter in an Ojibwe community in northern Ontario, and all of the external infrastructure – electricity, internet, phone – goes out, all at once. Though all of these systems are relatively recent and precarious this far north, it soon becomes clear that this was not some random, localized blip but something general and catastrophic. So this is the story of the first winter of the apocalypse – though as one of the elders of the community points out part way through the book, it is far from the first apocalypse the Anishinaabe have endured, and anyway there is no word for apocalypse in Anishinaabemowin. There were a few spots early on where the writing didn’t completely agree with me, mostly where the author was painting the initial picture of normal domesticity before the story really got going, but that concern was pretty minor – the storytelling was compelling and it was a really good read. The ending is ambiguous in a way that I found really creepy, though I can appreciate that may not be the most obvious way to read it. Recommended.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.