Empire Of Wild: A Novel

"This is a small book. Not in pages, but in the scope and reach of the story it tells. It is about Joan, who lost her husband and who means to get him back. And that’s all. But in this tiny thing lives the fiercely beating heart of a family, a town, a community – the Métis indigenous community living around Georgian Bay, Ontario. Joan’s entire family gets drawn into the hunt for her missing husband – whether they believe he simply walked out or whether something … darker might’ve befallen him. Cherie Dimaline uses the legend of the rogarou to square her narrative architecture and give weight (and nightmares) to Joan’s search and private hurt. The rogarou is the bogeyman that scares children home before dark. It makes Métis girls walk in pairs. It keeps men from doing wrong by women. The rogarou is part man, part dog. Intelligent. Vicious. It comes for you if you deserve it. Or sometimes, if you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time."