"I did not for a moment expect that it would have this broad-based reception in such a positive light."
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When Michelle Good began writing her first novel, she never imagined it would gain national recognition and send hundreds of people on their own journeys to discover the impacts of residential schools.
Now, little more than a year after her book Five Little Indians was released, it has done just that.
She laughed as she counted off the book’s long list of honours, among them being longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and being a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Fiction. It has also been shortlisted for six more awards, including the Governor General’s Award and the Indigenous Voices Award.
“It’s just beyond my wildest imagination,” said Good, who is a member of Saskatchewan’s Red Pheasant Cree Nation, where she spent much of her childhood.
Five Little Indians is set in the 1960s and follows the lives of five residential school survivors over decades as they work to overcome the trauma they endured at the schools.
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Adding to its accolades, the book was announced as the winner of the First Novel Award on Thursday, presented by Amazon Canada and The Walrus. The award comes with $60,000.
“I was very surprised, actually, but of course it’s a wonderful affirmation,” Good said.
“I thought that this book would do respectably well as a niche book that appealed to a niche audience. I did not for a moment expect that it would have this broad-based reception in such a positive light.”
While the awards give Good much satisfaction as an author, she said the book’s true success is found in the number of people it has pushed toward learning more about residential schools and the effect they had on those forced to attend them.
“(It’s) the readers that track me down on my web page and tell me how the book has impacted their understanding of things and it initiated their own course of education, to read further on the whole history of the schools and so on,” she said, noting hardly a day goes by when someone does not send her just such a message.
“That is the measure of success for me.”
Good has no plans to stop at just one novel, and is already onto her second. This time she is drawing deeply from her Saskatchewan roots. With a main character loosely modelled after her own great-grandmother, Good plans to delve into the province’s Indigenous history through story, going back as far as the 1850s.
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Michelle Good wins national First Novel Award with book Five Little Indians - Regina Leader-Post
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