It's telling that Miig introduces the eight children and young adults with whom he travels as his family—given the trauma they've all experienced and the fact that many of their blood-related families have been broken up, a makeshift chosen family is the only kind of family that most of the novel's characters will ever have. However, this is a difficult proposition, especially for Frenchie: he often dreams of his brother, Mitch, who sacrificed himself to save Frenchie. In the midst of this overwhelming grief and the destruction of his biological family, Frenchie must learn to value what semblance of family he does have: his chosen family of Miig and the others in the group. Accepting his situation for what it is and coming to terms with his identity in relation to his family are crucial elements of Frenchie’s maturation throughout the story. As he develops and begins to come of age, the novel suggests that a young person makes the final leaps toward adulthood as they begin to value and fit themselves in with their family—chosen or otherwise.
One of the clearest effects of the novel's residential schools and other policies concerning Indigenous people is that blood-related Indigenous families are broken up. In addition to this, Wab and Frenchie's stories suggest that the danger and the fear surrounding simply existing as an Indigenous person can, in some case, turn parents who are physically present into inadequate advocates and protectors for their children: Wab feels abandoned by her mother, who was addicted to alcohol and then cocaine, while Frenchie and Mitch's mom fell into a depression after Dad disappeared, and may have purposefully put herself in a situation where Recruiters could take her. In this kind of environment, Frenchie recognizes the importance of clinging to people who will protect him and remain loyal, no matter what—something that he did have with Mitch, but that only becomes truly real for him once he joins Miig's group. With this, the novel elevates the importance of chosen family: they are, in Frenchie's experience, not the only ones ever willing to defend him, but they are the only ones at this time who are present and able to do so.
Frenchie begins to take concrete steps toward adulthood as he grapples with new mature feelings and emotions in the form of his crush on Rose (another member of Miig’s group), and as he uses those emotions to catapult himself into a protective role for all his family members. Though it's worth noting that Rose is perfectly self-sufficient and is as competent at hunting and self-defense as any of the other teens in Miig's family, Frenchie's crush on her stirs up his desire to protect her, prove himself, and act like an adult more than anything else. Some of this leads to action that Frenchie fully admits is intended to impress Rose. However, Frenchie's crush on Rose also spurs him to act in service of others—and it's these other, often unplanned actions that end up thrusting Frenchie most uncomfortably into adulthood. For instance, Frenchie's anger over seeing seven-year-old RiRi brutally and senselessly murdered leads him to shoot her killer's co-conspirator, Travis, in a fit of rage. A week later, after Recruiters take Minerva, Frenchie insists that he has a responsibility to go after her and save her from the residential school. For Frenchie—and indeed, for the rest of his chosen family—the decision to head south to find an Indigenous resistance group that can help them is motivated by the fact that in losing RiRi and Minerva, the makeshift family lost their Elder (their connection to their heritage and their past) and their youngest (a representative of the future, and a reason to make the world a better place). With this, the novel suggests that family isn't just a collection of people who care for each other. Rather, family can be a much larger community that provides people with a firm sense of identity and a tangible connection to their past and future lineage.
As Frenchie is making sense of his burgeoning adult identity in relation to his present chosen family, his experience in the resistance group also forces him to integrate his past and future into his self-concept. Here, Frenchie discovers even more than he initially bargained for: his dad is there, alive and well. This turn of events, in which Frenchie suddenly has the chosen family led by Miig, Dad, and the hope of a real adult relationship with Rose, is overwhelming for Frenchie: the convergence of these three different types of family makes Frenchie question which type of family makes him feel most himself, and which family will allow him to be the most successful in his new role as a protector. As he vacillates between happiness at what seems like impossibly good fortune and intense grief (especially after Minerva's rescue results in Minerva's death), Frenchie's generally good behavior and kind nature begin to slip, resulting in Rose choosing to leave the group and striking out on her own. Losing this aspect of Frenchie's family that, even more than the others, represents the future (Miig gently brings up the responsibility of having children to Frenchie, who understands the imperative to someday do so) leads Frenchie to the understanding that ultimately, making the choice to chase Rose is the best way for Frenchie to fight for his family and for the future of all Indigenous people. Frenchie is able to make this choice because he feels safe enough in his relationships with his father figures (Miig and Dad) to leave, and this choice to venture out on his own—even though he and Rose return to the group—represent Frenchie's final coming-of-age moment. Returning to the community with Rose allows Frenchie to see that his relationships with his family members, both chosen and biological, are all crucial players in Frenchie’s understanding of the family lineage, community, and culture that inform his sense of self as he matures into an adult.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Family and Coming of Age ThemeTracker
Family and Coming of Age Quotes in The Marrow Thieves
"We're all dead anyway. I should make a shish kebab of your kids."
I didn't mean it. I looked at their round eyes, wet and watching but not nervous enough for the threat of a human. Their dad was there, after all, and they knew they were safe. I felt tears collecting behind my own eyes like sand in a windstorm. I opened my mouth...to say what? To apologize to a group of wild guinea pigs? To explain that I hadn't meant what I'd said? To let them know I just missed my family?
"How do you have language?" My voice broke on the last syllable. My chest tightened. How could she have the language? She was the same age as me, and I deserved it more. I don't know why, but I felt certain that I did. I yanked my braid out of the back of my shirt and let it fall over my shoulder. Some kind of proof, I suppose.
It was painful, but I didn't really mind. The more I described my brother, my parents, our makeshift community before Dad left with the Council, the more I remembered, like the way my uncle jigged to heavy metal. Instead of dreaming their tragic forms, I recreated them as living, laughing people in the cool red confines of RiRi's tent as she drifted off.
"Like how we are motivated to run because of the Recruiters?" Rose jumped in. "And the Recruiters are motivated to run after us because of the schools?"
"Almost," he answered. "We are actually both motivated by the same thing: survival."
"But isn't it just us that's trying to survive? No one's trying to kill those jerk-offs."
"But, nevertheless, they are dying. Mostly killing themselves, mind you. And so they are motivated by the need to be able to survive. And they see that solution in us."
He'd lost someone he'd built a life with right in the middle of that life. Suddenly, I realized that there was something worse than running, worse even than the schools. There was loss.
I nodded back, copying the way he held his mouth. Yes, we would definitely do so. Us men. We'd be vigilant. Chi-Boy turned and started making his way through the trees. I watched him for a minute, and tried to listen. There was nothing—the absence of sound was the only thing the ear picked up. There was no doubt Chi-Boy was the best scout we had, probably the best scout anyone had. I followed close behind, imitating his movements.
The schools were an ever-spreading network from the south stretching northward, on our heels like a bushfire. Always north. To what end? Now we'd lost RiRi. Now I'd shot a man. Would I even be welcome in the North? I couldn't even protect a little girl.
Everything was different. We were faster without our youngest and oldest, but now we were without deep roots, without the acute need to protect and make better. And I had taken up a spot that'd opened up in the middle of it all, somewhere between desperation and resolve.
How could anything be as bad as it was when this moment existed in the span of eternity? How could I have fear when this girl would allow me this close? How could anything matter but this small miracle of having someone I could love?
In them, there is always this feeling, an understanding more than an emotion, of protection. It didn't matter what was happening in the world, my job was to be Francis. That was all. Just remain myself. And now? Well, now I had a different family to take care of. My job was to hunt, and scout, and build camp, and break camp, to protect the others. I winced even thinking about it. My failure. I'd failed at protecting, and now, as a result, I failed at remaining myself.
We were desperate to craft more keys, to give shape to the kind of Indians who could not be robbed. It was hard, desperate work. We had to be careful we weren't making things up, half remembered, half dreamed. We felt inadequate. We felt hollow in places and at certain hours we didn't have names for in our languages.
I took off running, away from camp, the Council, my family: running toward Rose, who was somewhere beyond the birch-beaded edge of the woods, running towards an idea of home that I wasn't willing to lose, not even if it meant running away from the family I had already found.
I heard it in his voice as Miigwans began to weep. I watched it in the steps that pulled Isaac, the man who dreamed in Cree, home to his love. The love who'd carried him against the rib and breath and hurt of his chest as ceremony in a glass vial. And I understood that as long as there are dreamers left, there will never be want for a dream. And I understood just what we would do for each other, just what we would do for the ebb and pull of the dream, the bigger dream that held us all.
Anything.
Everything.
