THE BREAK KATHERINA VERMETTE ALLEN & UNWIN, $33

Review by Ken Strongman

Katherena Vermette is a member of the native Canadian Métis nation and lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her first book, of poetry, won many awards. The Break is her second book, a novel that is also winning awards. She is a superb, gifted writer, who in this book portrays the raw, harsh, but sometimes uplifting life of Métis women living in the poorer areas of Winnipeg.

The break is a strip of land, bare except for lines of huge hydro towers. It cuts through some of the streets of this run-down area of town. One night, when the land was still covered in winter snow, Stella, awake with a crying baby, saw from the window an assault taking place in the break. Four figures in black, hooded clothes were attacking what looked to be a young woman. They suddenly left, as though startled, and the woman very slowly and painfully struggled to her feet and moved away, leaving a huge bloodstain. Stella was horrified and frightened but felt powerless to do anything. She phoned the police, ashamed that she had not attempted to help.

Stella is one woman among seven extending over four generations of a Métis family. All are poor, all have had harrowing lives; some are talented, all revere their kookoms or grandmothers for their wisdom and the comfort they can bring to a world of relative penury in which the menfolk have their own urges, mainly to be elsewhere, quite different from the women.

The story of what happened that night in the break is told through the lives of the women, their backgrounds, their experiences, their unsettled hungers, their overwhelming sadness at life, punctuated with moments of humour and beliefs that there must be meaning in their existence.

The story is also seen through the eyes of a young Métis policeman who is investigating what has happened, hampered by his older, white, cynically prejudiced partner.

There clearly was a crime in The Break, so, loosely, it can be seen as crime fiction. But it is far more than the unravelling of a mystery. It is a direct, tough, honest, and at times almost brutal exposition of a family, a group clearly typical of the place and time, written with a compelling force. It leaves one simultaneously saddened at the plight of some wonderfully brave women and optimistic at the way in which they are able to survive and to make something admirable of their lives against strong odds and with nothing to rely on except each other.

Katherena Vermette is at the start of a writing career in which her work will have power and influence. In my view, it would be impossible to read

The Break and not become caught up in the lives of its characters and be moved by their plight and the way they rise above it.