'It's not like you can put it on the doorstep': Dallas Soonias talks trauma in the subtext of Bad Cree
On Day Two of Canada Reads 2024, Dallas Soonias commends Bad Cree for letting pain speak for itself
Defended by athlete and filmmaker Dallas Soonias, Bad Cree is a horror-infused novel that decentres Indigenous trauma from the forefront of the plot.
Mackenzie is haunted by terrifying nightmares and wracked with guilt about her sister Sabrina's untimely death. But when the lines between her dreams and reality start to blur, she returns to her hometown in rural Alberta and must confront the grief that's eating her and her family alive.
On Day Two of Canada Reads 2024, Dallas Soonias commended Bad Cree's representation of a nehiyaw family dealing with intergenerational trauma from residential schools and colonial violence.
Community builder Naheed Nenshi, however, was hoping to see more of that come through.
"I think both my biggest criticism and maybe the genius of the book are that when I was reading this book, I thought it was about something else," he said.
Nenshi expected a stronger focus on generational trauma and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and was surprised that the "ghost story" element was the main anchor, he said.
"I love that Jessica Johns is playing with my assumptions of what I expect of Indigenous trauma with something else.- Naheed Nenshi
"I love that Jessica Johns is playing with my assumptions of what I expect of Indigenous trauma with something else, but on the other hand, I feel like if she's playing with those assumptions, I would have liked to see more explicitly some of the intergenerational things you're talking about, because in the end, it's like Mackenzie has stepped away from a family that actually feels pretty functional."
"This is a story of women. The aunties are amazing, the mum is there, the kokum, the grandmother, is a guiding spirit... And I just didn't get the themes that you're talking about coming through as clearly as in other contemporary Indigenous fiction."
"That's the genius of this writer," countered Soonias, explaining that a heavy-handed approach to intergenerational trauma can only do so much.
"I don't like talking about it. It's always in my face. It's not like you can put it on the doorstep. It's in the kitchen rattling the pots and pans all day."
It's not like you can put it on the doorstep. It's in the kitchen rattling the pots and pans all day.- Dallas Soonias
Without diving so deeply into the causes, Johns shows the symptoms of this pain, said Soonias.
"She doesn't have to tell you exactly why. Because we know why."
Here's how to tune into Canada Reads 2024:
ONLINE: CBC Books will livestream the debates at 10:05 a.m. ET on CBCBooks.ca, YouTube and CBC Gem.
The debates will be available to replay online each day. The livestream on YouTube will be available to watch outside Canada.
If you'd rather listen to the debates online, they will air live on CBC Listen. A replay will be available later each day.
ON RADIO: Canada Reads will air on CBC Radio at 10:05 a.m. in the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.
It will air at 11:05 a.m. in Nunavut, the Maritimes, 1:05 p.m. in Labrador and at 1:35 p.m. in Newfoundland.
The debates will replay at 9 p.m. local time in all time zones, except in Newfoundland, where it will replay at 9:30 p.m.
ON TV: CBC TV will broadcast Canada Reads at 1 p.m. in the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones. It will air at 2 p.m. in the Atlantic time zone and at 2:30 p.m in the Newfoundland time zone.
PODCAST: The episode will be posted each day after the live airing. You can download the episodes on the podcast app of your choice.
