Mark Vetoshkin/Staff reporter
Indigenous oppression was very common in Canada during the 1930s all the way to the 2000s.
The author of the book All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac, was born and lived on the Okanagan Indian reserve. Life on the Indian reserve shaped Thomas and how he has the ability to really make the book All the Quiet Places feel like you’re really there experiencing everything. Brian obtained this skill to write as if you’re there from living on the Okanagan reserve and living where the story took place. Brian did not live on the reserve his whole life, he worked in the oil fields and worked as a brick layer.
Brian started working when he was in grade 8 to support his family and to provide and help as another source of income. After Brian retired as a brick layer, he started to work on book writing. Brian worked on his own writing for 17 years before publishing All the Quiet Places. All the Quiet Places is a book that explores the harsh realities and hardships of living on the reserve and what most people went through while living on the reserve and being considered an “Indian”.
The book begins with a boy named Eddie Toma, a summer storm had just rampaged over his house and wrecked the area around it too. Shortly after the damage the storm had raged over the area is discovered we are introduced to Eddies mom, Grace. Grace seemed like a strict, stubborn mom but yet she was still loving and worries about her kids and their future. Eddies family and lifestyle isn’t the best. His house has the absence of plumbing and electricity. We are introduced to Eddies “Quiet place”, which is a tree stump that’s hollowed out, out in the woods where he can sit and calm down when stuff gets stressful in the house with his mom.
The tree stump is evident that it was formed after the summer storm that rattled Eddies home and forest. Grace is soon to be bugged by an Indian agent trying to pressure her into sending her kids to a residential school. Soon Grace’s saviors arrive, her old friends, Ray and Isabel show up with their kid Gregory. She is offered an opportunity to work on a farm in Washington state and to get away from the Indian agent.
She accepts the offer and goes to work in Washington with Eddie and Lewis, Eddies little brother. Grace chose to go and work on the farm in order to get her family out of poverty. Not only did she get away from the Indian agent, but she also got Eddie away from the possible bullying that would have ensued in the residential school from the teachers and adults at the residential school. Moving to Washington in a cabin wasn’t all the greatest idea. Grace is soon met with alcohol abuse and violence.
Gregory faces some of the backlash from Ray because he stole candy from a corner store. Soon Gregory runs away out of anger and fear of Ray. Gregory is later found in a state that makes Ray and Lewis leave because it makes them so distraught. Eddie keeps attending school in Washington but is soon met with his first real bully. Rodney Bell bullied Eddie for being so called “Indian”, it was sort of Rodneys hobby for a while. Things in Eddies new school seemed bad, but he soon meets a girl named “Eva”.
Eva is enough for Eddie to make school worthwhile. Rodney keeps up with his antics until Eddie is soon met with yet another surprise. Eddies father, Jimmy suddenly appears in his life, and he had never met his father before till that moment. Eddies father tries to reconcile with Eddie and even gifts Eddie a .22 rifle as a present. Eddie is met with violence and alcohol abuse in his household. The only person Eddie can really turn to in his life is his grandmother. Eddies grandmother is the only person he can really rely on in his life. Eddie is now 14 years old and has gotten closer with Eva. Eddie and Eva get into an argument, and this makes Eddie frustrated because he really wants to be with Eva.
Soon Eddie is met with more problems at home. Jimmy attacks Grace, who is pregnant which, ends up killing the baby, and Eddie is furious and wants to beat Jimmy with a baseball bat. Eddie never gets to beat Jimmy with a baseball bat, but soon takes out his anger on Rodney Bell who decides to pick a fight with Eddie. Eddie beats Rodney Bell up and proves to Rodney Bell he isn’t going to take his nonsense anymore. Around this time Eddies grandma passes away which leaves Eddie in a rough state. Eva invites Eddie over for dinner with her white family’s household. This doesn’t end well, and he is met with many racist insults. Eddie runs away and Eva follows him on her horse, Eddie is crossing the bridge and looks left and is met with a pair of bright lights.
When reading All the Quiet Places I feel the writer had a deep connection to the story and did not fail to give the important details to make the book come alive. The book didn’t hide details and didn’t sugar coat on anything that happened, which I personally liked. The book showed both the happy sides of living on the reserve with close friends and family and the dark sides of being an indigenous kid living on the reserve.
When Eva’s parents were being rude and started hurdling racist insults at Eddie it really showed the harsh reality of kids who lived on the reserve trying to make friends with someone of different skin colour and how parents really influenced the friendship. Alcohol abuse was very prominent in the book, Ray and Jimmy both showed a lot of alcohol abuse, and it was almost only seen among the male characters in the book.
The book sort of gives you a sense of what is happening before it happens and gives sort of a feeling before something dramatic happens which is an interesting feeling to experience when reading a book. Isaacs writing skills really pop and the attention to detail is there and you can tell when you read the book. When an event would happen that would normally leave the reader shocked, it instead would make the reader feel of this being a normal event to occur on the reserve to bring a sense of discomfort that this is how life really was on the reserve and being a person of indigenous descent.
The character development of Eddie was interesting. When Eddie was introduced to new people and family members, he grew off them and learned from them to become a better and stronger person. When Eddies father punched Grace in the stomach, Eddie became furious and harnessed his anger to take down Rodney Bell, his school bully. It really showed that Eddie used the bad situation he was in, to finally deal with his school bully.
All the Quiet Places explores the harsh reality of living on the reserve during the time of residential school so it can be a tough topic to read. If you are interested in reading about topics like that or books that have reality checks and explore the truth of living on the reserve, this book is for you. Eddie has a lot of hardships and problems in his life, he has to deal with racism because he’s indigenous and all of these hardships keep stacking up on young boy like him.
Its a book you read to see how the character develops throughout the whole book and near the end Eddie is a different person to who he was at the start. The book explores the effects of colonialism and the effects on indigenous people in the 1900’s and how rough life was for them and the way they didn’t get treated right. It showed life from an indigenous person’s perspective so you could get a sense of how life was as an indigenous person in the mid 1900’s.
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