“He’s the heaviest secret I ever carried. I don’t want to carry him no more.”
This is a difficult review, because I was so looking forward to Blair Palmer Yoxall’s debut Treat Them as Buffalo (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2026 – fun fact, I interned at Algonquin over 20 years ago. My duties included reading through the slush pile and sending rejections); however, this historical fiction / anti-Western set in 1885 in what is now Saskatchewan and told from the POV of Nikosis “Niko” Eriksen, a 12-year-old Métis boy, just missed the mark for me.
The novel echoes Django Unchained, another revisionist western, byincorporating modern slang (this didn’t work for me at all – I’m not sure if it wasn’t done well enough that it was clearly intentional, or I just didn’t like it) and using hyper-stylized violence to expose the systemic racism faced by the Métis people. That combined with the use of mythology (Odin is our villain) and the importance of our stories all give it this vibe that makes me wonder if it would not be better suited for the screen.
The novel opens with Niko and his cousin, Cousin, pretending to be buffalo hunters. (They’ve never even tasted buffalo meat.) Cousin is kidnapped. Cousin ends up being one of several young boys who have been taken and castrated for a bounty. (This castration for a bounty seems a fictional component, but forced sterilization of Métis youth was a common practice that went on for decades under provincial eugenics laws and history should never forget.) The police seem questionable in their interest in the kidnappings. (Also questionable but for different reasons is Father Brisson.) Kate McCannon, a woman with a sawn-off shotgun and a reputation, heads up a group made primarily of women and children to recover the boys. The so-called “Pussy Posse” is a branch of a larger vigilante group in Deadwood.
It’s definitely a punch to the face kind of novel.
A Girl Named Tommi 