Unique YA Thriller | Angeline Boulley's Firekeeper's Daughter

  

The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Published by Henry Holt and Co., March 16, 2021

Genre: Fiction, YA Thriller

Format: Listened via Libby

I've been aware of this book for a few years, but I happened to pick it up now because it was available at the library. I couldn't put this one down and am thankful to Boulley for sharing her world.

Daunis is 18, has graduated high school, and is preparing to head to college from Sault Ste. Marie, a town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula near the Canadian border. She has spent her life with one foot in the Ojibwe, Native world of her biological father and one foot in the old French settler world of her mother. 

Author Boulley is an enrolled member of the Chippewa tribe in Michigan, and her community-based worldview is reflected in the book, mirrored in Daunis' point-of-view. In Firekeeper, someone dies, and the grief stricken community conducts a grief ceremony that includes hymns and other specific actions on each day, the community acknowledging the loss of a part of itself, someone important through the grief ceremony. Like the grief ceremony, storytelling connects the community and includes four parts. Boulley shares that the unlike the three act structure that most western screenwriters follow, Chippewa storytellers follow a four act structure, which reflects the importance of four in the culture. Four cardinal directions. Four foundational elements of natural medicine (tobacco, sage, cedar, and sweetgrass). Four days for spirit to depart earth. 

The idea of a four part story focused on community instead of a solitary hero threw me down a rabbit hole. Most western screenwriters follow a Greek three-act structure. Other writers think of Horace or German writer Freytag's five-part pattern or pyramid (establish scene, rising action, climax, falling action, dénouement or catastrophe). The three and five-act structures are based conflict and the idea of a hero, which the audience follows as the protagonist faces and defeats foes, dies and is reborn, and returns home with an elixir to save his world. In many Asian cultures, however, the four act story is more common. The purpose of these stories is to support community, connecting the listener to the storyteller, connecting the past to the present and the future. Instead of action-packed explosions and a superhuman hero, the movement in the story is the personal growth of the main character and how that growth builds a community. The action is typically more subtle.

The book is a thriller. It explores the impact of drugs, casinos, and the interplay of the law with the tribes. The twists in the story seemed realistic, and there were just enough twists to move the story forward. 

In 2023, Boulley's second novel Warrior Girl Unearthed. It's on my list. 

“Chippewas Shutting out Rest of World to Mourn.” Chicago Tribune, 22 Aug. 2021,

         www.chicagotribune.com/2005/03/24/chippewas-shutting-out-rest-of-world-to-mourn/.

Lavoie, Fin. “Q&A with Angeline Boulley, Firekeeper’s Daughter.” We Need Diverse Books, 12 Apr.

         2021, diversebooks.org/qa-with-angeline-boulley-firekeepers-daughter/.

LOVELY BIT

"Love honors your spirit. Not just the other person's but your own spirit too." 

RATING

Louise Erdich and Joshua Whitehead came up often as other writers with Native American heritage. More of the world to explore. 

BOOK CLUB GUIDE

Reading Firekeeper's Daughter with your book club? Here's a book club plan: Book Club Guide for Firekeeper's Daughter.