Monkey Beach: Chapter 1: Love Like the Ocean Summary & Analysis

Lisa and her family intuitively acknowledge Jimmy’s death, although none of them want to accept the loss yet. Yet their fear and concern bring them close together, both physically in the kitchen, and emotionally. The coast guard’s report—and Lisa’s reflection on ever-present storms, implying suffering and distress—reminds them all that life involves loss and suffering. And their gossip provides an early indication of Josh’s shifty, unstable character.

Early in the book, Lisa reveals her connection to the spiritual world through dreams and visions. Like most messages from the spirit world, her dream of Jimmy doesn’t offer a clear warning or promise of hope; on its face, it could be either. Likewise, the b’gwus or sasquatches are equivocal figures. The stories present them as scary bogeymen, yet in this instance, it’s the humans who fire first. This suggests that dangers aren’t always obvious, and that sometimes it's hard to draw a line between victims and oppressors.

Lisa grows up with stories full of magic and monsters that quietly teach her to face the myriad terrors and trials of life. This lesson, in turn, informs her ongoing struggle to come to terms with loss in the book.

The sasquatch stories create continuity between Haisla history and modern life. Additionally, the trip to Monkey Beach demonstrates the importance of family. Everyone gets on board—to some extent or other—with Jimmy’s hare-brained scheme. Despite the squabbles that arise—like the one in which Aunt Edith thinks Mom has insulted her baking skills—everyone sticks together and finds ways to smooth over their differences in the end.

Jimmy’s behavior shows how he’s taken the sasquatch stories at face value, in part because he lives in a place and a culture where the lines between the waking world and the supernatural world are thin and permeable. In this vein, readers should note that only Lisa goes into the woods; no one else heard the noises she did. In contrast, the not-so-magically-sensitive Mom, Dad, Geordie, and Edith search in a logical if incorrect direction, assuming the water, rather than the woods, drew Jimmy’s attention.

When Lisa encounters the sasquatch, she—and readers—suddenly realize that she’s been following it, and not Jimmy, all along. He may have been in the woods looking for it, but he only sees it after her screams alert him to its presence. This confirms something that the book has already established: Lisa’s ability to see things in the spirit world that others cannot. Yet, in this moment, she chooses to deny her vision—it’s unclear why. 

Lisa muses about the equivocal and enigmatic nature of messages from the spirit world. Determining the truth remains difficult, at least without the benefit of hindsight. This suggests how much of life lies outside of a person’s control and points towards the book’s message that power comes not from knowing what will happen, but learning to deal with events as they arise.

This flashback to Lisa’s early childhood interrupts the narrative as if it’s imposing itself on her stream of consciousness while she sits on the porch smoking. It introduces the little man, a messenger from the spirit world who visited Lisa frequently in her childhood to warn her when big changes were about to happen in her life. This first experience connects him firmly with suffering and death—the dog dies—but his role will expand and change as the story goes on.

Smoking a cigarette on the porch quickly sucks Lisa into a chain of memories centering around her Uncle Mick. In her worry over Jimmy, her subconscious calls up memories of another beloved family member who seems to be gone, suggesting that deep down she already believes that Jimmy is dead. The little man’s role expands here—it seems that he doesn’t just warn her about impending danger but also about happier upheavals, like the return of the long-lost Mick. 

Perhaps because of her dream involving the little man, Lisa initially takes Mick’s reappearance as a threat to her family. Yet after overcoming their initial shock, Mom and Dad invite him in—to the house, literally, and back into the fold of the family figuratively—with open arms. This meeting also establishes the affinity between Mick and Lisa, both fierce fighters. Lisa shows herself to be a valiant protector of her family here, but also demonstrates the lack of discernment that will render much of her fighting impotent and painful in future years.

The danger of the road and the casual way locals speed along it suggest the power in the Haisla’s ancestral lands and the sea which nourished them, neither of which can be tamed. The people draw their own bravery and strength from these sources. The road thus emerges as a metaphor in the book’s exploration of the ways in which white settler colonialism and government policies designed to control Indigenous Peoples failed to achieve their ends, despite traumatizing and abusing generations of people.

Mick seems to represent a trickster—a supernatural figure in Indigenous Peoples’ traditions that often protects humanity but also frequently indulges in rule-breaking—in the way he oscillates between stability and counter-cultural defiance. The taxes Mick refuses to pay point bluntly towards the history of abuse and trauma visited by white settler colonists and later by the Canadian government on Indigenous Peoples. Mick’s individual protest against the government aligns with his involvement in bigger activist organizations like the A.I.M., as will be seen later.

Lisa’s nested memories suggest the deep and intertwined ways events in a person’s life unfold. Her wild insistence on conquering the tsunami as a child relates to her later attempts to fight her way out of grief and trauma, and points towards the current moment, in which she realizes (subconsciously at least) that she’s about to face the test of another loss—Jimmy. The tsunami itself offers a reminder of how many things lie outside of a person’s control. Maturity involves learning to accept one’s limits and to weather the storms of life in a way that doesn’t cause more damage and destruction than necessary.

The interactions between Mom, Dad, and Mick show the importance of a loving and supportive family—and demonstrate the ways in which love doesn’t always prevent disagreement or strife. At first, Lisa’s memories associate Mick with happiness, sunshine, and the fertility of Dad’s garden, but soon chaos and disorder descend and the hawks kill all the chicks. This foreshadows the brevity of Mick’s time in Lisa’s—and the family’s—life. It also offers a pointed lesson that no one person’s efforts, no matter how conscientious, can offset or prevent suffering and death. Life involves both happiness and sadness, each in its own season. In this memory, the crows predict death and destruction, further cementing their ability to warn about bad news in the story.

In this time of fear and confusion, Lisa finds herself surrounded by her loving, supportive family. Her memories have already showed readers how Aunt Edith (and Uncle Geordie) have protected her and helped her through other dangerous situations, implying that she will be able to survive this event too, no matter the results of the Coast Guard search. As Aunt Kate settles into housekeeping, Lisa’s unsettled thoughts turn to the mysterious circumstances around Jimmy’s disappearance. She knows more about what drove him to sea than she’s yet willing to admit to readers.

Lisa seems to be in denial as she tries to deploy Jimmy’s love for and comfort in the water as a reason why he can’t possibly have drowned. Her memories of their childhood at the bay show their early closeness and illustrate her protective feelings towards him.

Lisa’s memory gives readers important insights into her character, specifically that she hates shocks and prefers to enter the cold water little by little. This memory provides a metaphor for the experience of death, which happens all at once and which irrevocably changes the world. Likewise, the world looks and sounds strange and alien to Lisa when she opens her eyes under the water. Writ large, the book illustrates Lisa’s attempts to resist the shock of her loved ones’ deaths and her attempt to experience her pain and suffering only a little bit at a time. But this only serves to draw out her suffering.

Even when they squabble and disagree, Lisa feels protective of her little brother—family provides a safety net despite members’ differences. Jimmy shows his fearlessness in this moment, in contrast to Lisa’s concern. This memory also introduces Adelaine Jones, who eventually becomes Jimmy’s girlfriend and whom Lisa has already placed as somehow involved in his disappearance, if only because he claimed saving money for their wedding as the reason he decided to go fishing.

Mom tries to warn Lisa that she should appreciate the relationships and experiences in her life while they are happening, because one never knows when things will change suddenly. But as a child, Lisa remains too immature to fully understand and accept this lesson.

Lisa fears the wild and dangerous ocean. Readers should remember not just her earlier ruminations on the frequency of storms and shipwrecks but also the tsunami—even on land, the sea can wreak havoc and destruction. In a way, in this moment, the water metaphorically represents death and Lisa’s fear of it shows her fear of loss. In contrast, Jimmy draws his own sense of power and purpose from the water.

The bike memory shows a young and immature Lisa causing herself pain by an inappropriate application of power. She has some of it right: power, the book argues, arises out of choosing one’s battles (she doesn’t want the shame of learning after her younger brother) and using one’s efforts to push towards the future. But unless one acknowledges the limits placed by reality and the external world on one’s own action—in this case, the force of gravity—one risks serious suffering and pain.

This is the second time Uncle Geordie has saved Lisa from herself, illustrating the importance of a good family as a safety net for each of its members. Lisa still bears the scars of this incident, which offer a powerful reminder of the ways in which her experiences—perhaps the painful ones most powerfully of all—change and shape her as she grows up. The scars may fade but the lessons remain.

Thus far, the book has shown readers examples of a loving, close-knit, and caring family; as Lisa’s memories extend towards her cousins, they begin to hint at trouble in other corners of her extended family. While Lisa clearly envies Tab for the greater freedoms Aunt Trudy allows her, she also seems to understand the ways in which this points towards Trudy’s general neglect of her parenting (and housekeeping) responsibilities.

The Hill family look out for each other despite their flaws and difficulties. Although in the moment young Lisa doesn’t seem to fully understand the import of this evening, it points towards Mick’s aimlessness and difficulty navigating normal elements of life, like holding down a job and caring for himself. Nevertheless, her parents trust Mick to care for her and Jimmy, and he follows through on that commitment despite his evident pain (and pain-medication-induced stupor).

Mick’s story refers to the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973, a protest mounted by the A.I.M. and others against the U.S. government’s abuse and neglect of Indigenous Nations. He provides a history suitable for a child (barring a little profanity) that nevertheless graphically illustrates the ways in which historical mistreatment at the hands of government authorities continues to affect Indigenous people even in the present. When Dad comes in and sees Mick’s living situation, he intervenes to take care of his brother because family watch out for each other even—or especially—when things are going badly.

Lisa reflects on the differences between her mother’s taste for dainty, western clothes and Mick’s preference for items like the buckskin jacket, political T-shirt, and bone choker that loudly proclaim his Indigenous heritage. Mom and Mick share a Haisla heritage, but Mom’s fashion choices align more with the standards of white culture. Notably, the book doesn’t criticize Mom for her assimilation, but Lisa feels drawn from an early age towards Mick’s combative and political stance instead.

The book claims that histories of trauma and abuse inform the present, a dynamic Lisa sees in full force at the settlement feast, even if she doesn’t yet fully understand the implications. Trudy hates Ma-ma-oo because she feels that Ma-ma-oo chose the abusive Ba-ba-oo over her children. But their rift intensified after Trudy endured abuse and trauma in the government’s residential school system. The historical trauma layers on top of the personal trauma in such a way that Trudy’s life remains forever marked by her past.

Although the extent to which the differences between Mick and Dad arise from divergent personalities rather than experiences remains unclear, Mick’s history in residential school clearly affects the trajectory of his life. Unlike Dad, Mick resists authority and struggles to maintain a regular job. The jellyfish in the net yet again point towards the sea’s unfriendliness and danger. And Lisa’s unwillingness to acknowledge the pain they cause her so that she can impress Mick foreshadows the suffering she will later endure when she denies her pain after traumatic events.

Mick’s complete and utter grief and rage over Elvis’s death suggests that, like Lisa later, he hasn’t yet accepted or dealt with other losses in his life. Thus, losing his musical hero reawakens the feelings of helplessness and rage he feels over other losses. His subsequent behavior—taking off without telling anyone—again suggests the difficulty he had with forging a successful and grounded adult life following his trauma in the residential school system.

Even at a young age, Lisa has a warrior’s temperament like her Uncle Mick. She shows fearlessness even in the face of stacked odds—Frank shows up with his friends while Erica abandons Lisa. Yet familial obligation seems to inform this incident as well; Lisa wants to escape Erica’s fate, but also seems to relish seeking a little bit of revenge on Frank for harassing her cousin. This fight also demonstrates Lisa’s immature tendency to lash out indiscriminately when she feels pain or fear. And while she holds her own for a while, lashing out proves unsustainable and her cousin must still rescue her.

The name Frank’s mother gives Lisa, “Monster,” provides another connection between her and Mick, who earned the same nickname in his childhood. When Mick tells Lisa that her own mother used to have a wild side, he points to the cyclical nature of history: events in the present often replay or point towards moments in the past. And, yet again, Lisa’s memories offer a warning about Josh. Even in a book where Lisa regularly remembers being spanked by her parents, Josh’s words seem to imply he’s punished Frank with unusual or excessive violence.

Mick introduces Lisa to the long history of oppression and violence Indigenous People suffered at the hands of white settlers and governments in North America. And her experience shows her that oppression did not end in the past; it continues in the whitewashed history taught at her school, which vilifies Indigenous Nations to justify the government’s attempts to indoctrinate them with Western languages, religions, and social norms. In response, she asserts the truth and establishes her role as a warrior fighting oppression, just like her Uncle Mick. And although readers have to wait to hear more about Ba-ba-oo’s personal history, the juxtaposition of Lisa’s memory of standing up in class with Dad’s unhappy memories of his own father point towards the connection between this systemic violence and the traumas of the Hill family specifically.

Barry connects Mick to the larger A.I.M. movement, which continued its work throughout the 70s (after Mick left) and into the present day. Dad and Mom, in contrast to Mick, are much more assimilated to white culture and far less political in their views. This seems to fuel Dad’s discomfort around Barry; not having suffered the same traumas as his older brother, he lacks interest in protest and fighting oppression.

The salmonberry memories place Lisa, Mick, and Ma-ma-oo together as an inseparable group; this triad gives Lisa her strongest sense of safety and belonging in her childhood—making its eventual loss especially painful. Importantly, they bond as much over novel family traditions—such as Ma-ma-oo’s soap opera obsession—as over Haisla traditions. In this way, the book suggests the importance of honoring Indigenous cultures without suggesting that they should be somehow lost in the past or cut off from modern society.

This memory recounts one of the most important lessons Ma-ma-oo taught Lisa. Her ritual suggests that the living and the dead are separated by a thin, permeable line, and teaches Lisa that honoring the memory of the dead keeps them connected to the living. It suggests that ghosts exist almost everywhere—else Lisa wouldn’t need to specify that she intends the gifts for her Ba-ba-oo. And it allows Ma-ma-oo to express her love and pride in her husband, suggesting that they shared a history more nuanced than the simple story of domestic abuse that Tab earlier described.

No one denies that Ba-ba-oo beat Ma-ma-oo, and later in the book, Lisa will confirm Tab’s assertion. And while the book refuses to condone his actions, it does place them in the context of a broader history of abuse and trauma. Ba-ba-oo serves the country of Canada honorably during WWII, but when he returns, the country refuses to repay his services as long as he remains on the Haisla reservation. This suggests a general disregard for the rights and identities of Indigenous people that added to the trauma of Ba-ba-oo’s disability by making it impossible for him to support his family.

Kemano, as the book later reveals, is an older settlement which the Haisla abandoned decades earlier, following disease and famine. It’s also close to another Alcan site, suggesting the connection between the expanding footprint of Canadian government and enterprise in the Haisla’s traditional territory and the decline of Indigenous culture and traditions. This description points towards the mutual ways in which the dead and the living nourish and support each other. The living keep the dead alive in memory, while the dead connect the living to the past.

The issue of oolichan grease points towards the precarious existence of Indigenous traditions following systematic attempts to destroy Indigenous culture through the residential schools and other programs. People of Lisa’s grandparents’ generation—Ma-ma-oo, Edith, and Geordie—possess knowledge that people of her parents’ generation—Mom and Dad—lack though their assimilation to Western cultural norms. And while Lisa indicates an interest in learning traditional knowledge, the circumstances of modern life also make it difficult for her to do so.

Lisa begins to admit how little she knows about Jimmy’s life at this point; something interrupted their childhood familiarity, and although she will eventually admit that some of this had to do with her, for the moment she only reveals hints of recent changes in Jimmy’s life, specifically the loss of his swimming career. It seems that she isn’t the only person to have to contend with painful losses. Standing in Jimmy’s room, Lisa cannot disconnect from her musings on the oolichan grease. Looking at the mountain reminds her of Ma-ma-oo and the ways she preserved and taught Lisa and Jimmy traditional knowledge.

Lisa remembers participating in the traditional experience of oolichan fishing with most of her family. Jimmy’s and Dad’s ambitions look outwards from the Haisla community towards the international, modern world represented by the Olympics and Jimmy’s developing swimming career. In contrast, Lisa cannot wait to participate in the fishing trip. The moment with the man and boy seems ambiguous: if Mick truly can’t see them, then they might be part of one of Lisa’s visions. If he can see them but pointedly ignores them, his disdain points towards the vexed history between Indigenous people and white North Americans, with Mick refusing to see members of a group whom he feels refuses to accept or acknowledge his identity and rights.

Lisa again describes some of the deep precolonial history of the Haisla people and their neighbors, who thrived along the Pacific coast long before any white colonists arrived. Moreover, she pins the degradation of the local environment squarely on the descendants of those colonists, who thoughtlessly take what they want from the land without caring for its ecological integrity. And then to make matters worse, this degradation puts traditional practices like fishing for oolichans out of the reach of all but the most financially secure modern Haisla.

Lisa’s fond memories of Mick show why their relationship was so close: he allowed her to do things that her cautious parents wouldn’t have condoned, in the process teaching her the skills necessary to maintain a more traditional way of life (boating, crab fishing).

Lisa wants to follow in Mick’s warrior footsteps, and she’s already shown herself to be a scrappy fighter when the need arises. But in this moment, Mick starts to teach her an important lesson about protest and power—fighting by itself won’t necessarily make her feel better or improve anything. Standing up against injustice can be dangerous both physically and emotionally—Mick claims he got nothing but scars from his attempts. It will take Lisa a long time still to understand the full meaning of his words. He also demonstrates his affection for Mom and Dad—and points towards their love for each other—as a corrective to Lisa’s pugilistic spirit. Love and support, he claims here, are as important in creating a good life and a better future as being a warrior.

Both Mick and Lisa take the halibut in the crab trap as a sign, although they cannot tell if it points towards good or bad luck. In its mysterious ability to get into the trap despite being far larger than the holes, it suggests the shapeshifters in Ma-ma-oo’s traditional Haisla stories and thus points towards a person’s ability to reinvent him- or her-self throughout life. It’s also possible to interpret the sign as pointing to Mick, or Lisa, both of whom feel somewhat trapped by their circumstances. And it foreshadows Mick’s impending death. Alternatively, it could always just be a strange thing that happened. Signs from the spirit world are equivocal and hard to interpret in this book, since the community lacks anyone familiar with the old ways and wisdom.

The abandoned village points to historical traumas in the Haisla community, even though it doesn’t lay out the specific circumstances. It also suggests an explanation for the voices and laughter that Lisa hears through the trees: ghosts. This confirms for Lisa her grandmother’s assertions that the barrier between the waking world and the realm of the spirits is thin and permeable, and it offers another early glimpse of Lisa’s awakening connection to the spiritual realm. But just because Ma-ma-oo feels comfortable around ghosts doesn’t mean Lisa does, so she tries to scare them from the house.

While Mom didn’t want to get into the painful details of the past, Mick proves more willing to share stories with Lisa. Granted, he tells happier stories, but they still point towards the realities of life: at some point the fun and games of childhood end and people must grow up and face adult life. Mick retains some of his childlike exuberance but can never recapture the innocence Lisa still has at this point.

Mick’s story of the seals aligns with and anticipates Ma-ma-oo’s stories about shapeshifters which Lisa will later describe. Over time, she learns an important lesson from the shapeshifters, that a person can—and must—undergo changes as they grow up but that they can still maintain continuity with their past. Notably, shapeshifters seem to favor transforming from seals or bears into humans—and both kinds of animal figure prominently in this story.

Lisa worries about ghosts but it’s memories that haunt Mick. He dreams about Cookie, the wife whom Lisa will later learn died violently in connection with their activism. Not only do his nightmares suggest that loss and suffering form an inevitable part of everyone’s life, but they point towards the violence and abuse suffered by Indigenous groups in the past—and the ways these violent cycles have enduring consequences. Lisa’s experiences at Kemano confirm Ma-ma-oo’s claims that the spirit world lies close to the waking world and often bleeds through into it.

Mick’s reaction to Edith’s prayer points toward the abuse he and others suffered in the residential school system, which was explicitly designed to obliterate the cultural and social heritage of Indigenous Peoples. His experiences fueled his activism, leading to his relationship with—and loss of—Cookie. Historical cycles of abuse continue to play out in his life, with long-term consequences.

Mom and Mick carry on some  traditional Haisla knowledge and rituals, but their connection to the past seems tenuous, thanks to the history of violence and attempts on the part of the residential schools to destroy their heritage. But the legends and stories continue to help people like Lisa understand her place in the world. The gods punished the stone man for failing to heed the advice of his elders. Similarly, Lisa’s later failure to heed Ma-ma-oo’s  warning about her powerful yet dangerous connection to the spirit world will endanger her.

Mom’s story illustrates the idea that things aren’t always what they seem to be. Sometimes harmless things seem dangerous and frightening; sometimes benign things threaten danger. Sometimes sasquatches are really bears, yet this still leaves open the possibility that magic exists in the world for those who, like Lisa, have the eyes to see it.

The conversation between Mom and Mick illuminates some of the consequences of racism and violence in Mick’s life. He has never found a place in the world, in part, the book implies, because of his experiences in the residential schools and the violence he suffered as an activist. The idea of her relationship with Mick changing if he left the village terrifies Lisa even as it reminds her that life guarantees nothing but change.

At the lake, Lisa has a series of encounters with nature which suggest that something deeper or more magical lies beneath the mundane, everyday world around her. The heron studies her as intently as she studies it and shows no fear in her presence; the water ripples as if something potentially sinister lurks below its surface. Though nothing appears, Lisa’s fixation on it, especially when Mick remains underwater, foreshadows his death and subtly points towards Lisa’s developing connection with the spirit world.

Mick and Mom clearly share a history about which Lisa knows little if anything at this point. Their good-natured teasing and obvious affection for each other reinforces the importance of familial relationships to thriving in a world full of painful experiences. Lisa’s feeling that the stone man watches her again points towards her sensitivity to the mythical and magical things that go on just beyond the boundary of the regular world.

Mom remains in the house while Mick and Lisa spend the day outdoors connecting to nature (by fishing, in Mick’s case) and the past (by exploring the graveyard and village, in Lisa’s). In a way, this exploration seems to pose a danger to Lisa—she’s overexposed to the elements, and indeed she falls ill by the end of the day. In contrast, Mom makes herself “safe” by isolating in the house, but she also denies her connection to the world around her. The cemetery carries a feeling of sadness, but also of peace. Here, the boundaries between the buried dead and the verdant life of the forest blur.

Much of the story in this book follows Lisa’s growth and maturation; as in many coming-of-age stories, part of this growth involves her increasing awareness of her own sexuality and the complicated relationships between the adults around her. In this moment, she realizes that there’s a much more intimate connection between Mom and Mick than she had realized.

As in the earlier incident with the trapped halibut, Mom’s vision simultaneously terrifies and comforts her. As in almost every other example in the book, it proves almost impossible to easily distinguish good from bad omens, at least in the moment. Only in retrospect—after a death, after a moment of salvation—does the omen’s meaning become clear.

Lisa remembers the day hawks got into the chicken coop. In this moment, it seems that the crows might be aligned with the figure of the trickster, since Lisa suggests that they might have helped the hawks reach the chickens, with their clever ability to breach Dad’s protective barriers. The exuberant life of the crows congregating on the tree contrasts sharply with the gruesome deaths of the chickens, offering a harsh reminder of the fragility of life and inescapability of death.

Lisa spends a sleepless night worrying about Jimmy and thinking about the bottom of the ocean. Like her connection to the spirit world, the ambiguous ocean teems with beauty and life but also great danger. It also points to the limitations of human knowledge and reminds readers that many mysteries remain shrouded from human knowledge on this earth, making the supernatural elements of the story feel more probable.

Up to this point in the book, the crows have primarily been associated with bad luck—their words about the bottom of the ocean don’t bode well for Jimmy’s safety, and they predict (or possibly contribute to) the chickens’ death. Now Ma-ma-oo introduces the idea that the crows might confer good luck on Jimmy. Thus, like Lisa’s connection to the spirit world, the crows seem to have great power which proves to be helpful or harmful in equal measure. Their intelligence also aligns with Ma-ma-oo’s stories about shapeshifters, since they seem to possess an almost human intelligence. They reinforce the idea that inexplicable, almost magical forces exist in the world.

Part of Lisa’s coming of age involves her dawning awareness of the complexities of adult relationships, especially in terms of sex and romance. In her drunken state, Trudy inappropriately sexualizes her daughter and niece in ways that mirror racist assumptions about Indigenous women—assumptions the book implies Trudy herself faced in residential school and beyond. Lisa, ever the pugilistic warrior, jumps to Tab’s defense. But when Trudy hits her where it hurts—in relationship to her beloved Uncle Mick—she doesn’t know how to respond, especially because Trudy’s allegations echo the interaction Lisa witnessed at Kemano.

Although the information Lisa seeks from Trudy indicates that she’s not a little girl any longer, Trudy still treats her (and Tab) like children when she maintains the fiction of illness. The girls know as well as Trudy that a hangover, not a bug, causes her upset stomach. The complicated history between Mom and Mick points to the long-lasting, intergenerational effects of systemic racism and cultural violence against Indigenous Peoples; Mick’s early experiences in residential school and as an activist kept him from forming stable romantic relationships.

Lisa’s ruminations on life in the ocean obsessively focus on its depths, suggesting her subconscious fear (or belief) that Jimmy is dead. The corpse in this moment may be his; it may also refer to Mick, towards whose death by drowning this section of the book has been building. The image of the otter, the sea urchin, and the corpse also points towards a certain harshness in the natural world—eat or be eaten—but it also invokes the cyclical nature of life and the ways in which the dead and the living nourish and support each other.

The little man visits Lisa because of the strength of her connection to the spirit realm, but in her immaturity and inexperience, she tries to turn her back on him and his warnings. Thus, she willfully ignores his warning on the day of Mick’s death, even when their final conversation involves his inability to take her with him when he leaves. This will be the last time that Lisa ignores the little man’s warnings.

Lisa’s sense of dread increases as she drives to the harbor with Dad. Her insistent assertion to herself that nothing is wrong mirrors a dream she will later have in which Ma-ma-oo tells herself the same thing, even though things are clearly very wrong. Mick’s death shows how thin the line between life—represented by the sustenance the fish in the net can provide the family—and death can be. Lisa experiences such trauma from this first, pivotal loss that her memory fragments into a series of images rather than a cohesive narrative.

The book turns quickly from the last time Lisa ignored a message from the spirit world—the warning about Mick’s death—to the present, where she continues to struggle to understand what the crows want her to do. Spotty’s calls warn her of impending news, but until she hears Dad’s voice she can’t guess whether it’s good or bad, since the crows represent both kinds of luck. The way the first section of the book builds up towards Mick’s death—the first serious loss in Lisa’s life—certainly suggests her belief that Jimmy has met a similar fate. But the crows also have a positive message for her, which suddenly clicks into place as she realizes she can go to the water herself and reach her Mom and Dad more quickly that way.

Lisa takes fate into her own hands in this moment; she’s at a point in her life where she’s learning to take her fighting instincts and direct her energies towards things she can change rather than indiscriminately lashing out whenever she’s in pain. The next section of the book will excavate the long and arduous path she traversed to learn this lesson in the years following Mick’s death.