Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice

Waubgeshig Rice’s 2018 novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was a creepy, unsettling, and excellent dystopian novel, following an Anishinaabe community in the period after a global collapse, from their fear and isolation from the rest of the world to their journey to set up a new community, in the bush, returning to the traditions they had lost or been forced to give up when Turtle Island was colonized.

Moon of the Turning Leaves brings us back to the community ten years on. Their new home is peaceful, and hopeful, and allows them to simply be. However, signs are beginning to crop up that they need to do something: fishing and hunting in the area have diminished, the community keeps shrinking, and the pre-collapse tools and items they make use of are starting to break. Evan Whitesky, the young father who led them into the bush in the first place, is chosen to lead a new expedition to find supplies and see if there are any other communities which survived – joined by his fifteen-year-old daughter, Nangohns, who was a toddler when the collapse happened.

“I was glued to this one; Rice is a great storyteller, and his writing shines again here.”

Unlike Moon of the Crusted Snow, Moon of the Turning Leaves is a far more hopeful book. The future is here, and the community is grasping it with the help of the next generation. Their expedition has its share of violence, danger, and tension, but the book as a whole is about building a sustainable future for their children and grandchildren. In this post-collapse world, Nangohns sees hope and a comfortable, communal life, though the challenges of living in the bush and the trauma from the collapse and the violence in the community from the first book linger over the story.

Those who enjoyed Moon of the Crusted Snow will be pleased with this sequel, which fleshes out the world, provides direction on “what happened next,” and is just as compelling as the first book. I was glued to this one; Rice is a great storyteller, and his writing shines again here. Moon of the Turning Leaves is a wonderful addition to apocalyptic literature. Indigenous writers have been doing a lot of groundbreaking work in this genre, which is not surprising when you think about the generational trauma and apocalypse Indigenous peoples have been contending with for hundreds of years. Rice weaves in the real history, and this imagined collapse, which isn’t so implausible. This is a rich novel, and I highly recommend reading both of these works.

Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His latest novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was released in October 2018 and became a National Bestseller.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Canada (Oct. 10 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0735281580
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0735281585

Alison Manley

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Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.