Black Apple

by Joan Crate

Paperback, 2017

Status

Available

Call number

FIC CRA

Call number

FIC CRA

Description

A dramatic and lyrical coming-of-age novel about a young Blackfoot girl who grows up in the residential school system on the Canadian prairies. Torn from her home and delivered to St. Mark's Residential School for Girls by government decree, young Rose Marie finds herself in an alien universe where nothing of her previous life is tolerated, not even her Blackfoot name. For she has entered into the world of the Sisters of Brotherly Love, an order of nuns dedicated to saving the Indigenous children from damnation. Life under the sharp eye of Mother Grace, the Mother General, becomes an endless series of torments, from daily recitations and obligations to chronic sickness and inedible food. And then there are the beatings. All the feisty Rose Marie wants to do is escape from St. Mark's. How her imagination soars as she dreams about her lost family on the Reserve, finding in her visions a healing spirit that touches her heart. But all too soon she starts to see other shapes in her dreams as well, shapes that warn her of unspoken dangers and mysteries that threaten to engulf her. And she has seen the rows of plain wooden crosses behind the school, reminding her that many students have never left here alive. Set during the Second World War and the 1950s, Black Apple is an unforgettable, vividly rendered novel about two very different women whose worlds collide: an irrepressible young Blackfoot girl whose spirit cannot be destroyed, and an aging yet powerful nun who increasingly doubts the value of her life. It captures brilliantly the strange mix of cruelty and compassion in the residential schools, where young children are forbidden to speak their own languages and given Christian names. As Rose Marie matures, she finds increasingly that she knows only the life of the nuns, with its piety, hard work and self-denial. Why is it, then, that she is haunted by secret visions--of past crimes in the school that terrify her, of her dead mother, of the Indigenous life on the plains that has long vanished? Even the kind-hearted Sister Cilla is unable to calm her fears. And then, there is a miracle, or so Mother Grace says. Now Rose is thrust back into the outside world with only her wits to save her. With a poet's eye, Joan Crate creates brilliantly the many shadings of this heartbreaking novel, rendering perfectly the inner voices of Rose Marie and Mother Grace, and exploring the larger themes of belief and belonging, of faith and forgiveness.… (more)

Publication

Simon & Schuster (2017), Edition: Reprint, 336 pages

Original language

English

Language

User reviews

LibraryThing member Lynora
*SPOILER WARNING* The book was a good read. I enjoyed the flow, the author's writing and the general flow of the book.
Joan Crate sculpted the characters well and I found that they were well rounded. Despite Canada's inhumane treatment of Native Aboriginals I found that this book managed to create
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a dynamic balance between both the religious institutions and the Aboriginals perspective, showing how well intentioned actions were the cause of Native decline yet keeping some humanity in the wrongdoing. The nuns were not just portrayed as villians, which I find creates the good vs evil sort of view but there were injustices done in the Catholic organization to members of it.
The issue that I have with the book is when Rose Marie arrives in Black Apple. She is out of school and is thrust into the real world of discrimination as a young woman and without the guidance of the Sisters, she begins to question as why things are as they are. This should be the peak of the book but its near the end, and i find that the inclusion of two possible suitors, one native and the other white is a blunt representation of what lifestyle Rose Marie chooses without the Sisters at her back.
I thought that the discrimination that she faced in the church was enough to give her of a choice whether she wants to stay part of the Catholic institution or not, and this addition of possible romance was just an excess which could have been done without. It could be seen as a metaphor, but it is written far too literally.
Especially one insinuation in a chapter near the end.
It was a letdown of an ending about 3/4 through, but everything else was enough to pique my interest to keep reading it. I recommend it to a certain extent, not to those who rely on the ending to wrap up the story with a neat little bow though.
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LibraryThing member LynnB
There can be no reconciliation without truth, and that is why I think this is an important addition to the writings about Canada's residential school system. I believe the system and its policy underpinnings were 100% wrong. Even if every child taken from their families had been treated like little
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princes and princesses (and they most definitely were not), it would have been 100% wrong. To make matters of cultural genocide even worse...yes, it's possible to get worse than that...the system created a haven for pedophiles by isolating children from any possible support system.

So why is this particular book important? Because it shows that there were individual people (like Mother Grace) who genuinely believed she was helping the children and who did her best to ensure they were fed, educated and not abused. Here is a woman who was indoctrinated from birth about salvation of the immortal soul through Jesus, about priests being the embodiment of God on earth...she is (to a more benevolent extent) a victim of a system that channeled her way of thinking and her beliefs. She did her best in difficult circumstances. Should she have known better? Probably.

And that is the main reason this book is important. Despite the relatively good treatment Rose received, and the advantages Mother Grace secured for her, we see a young woman torn from her family who misses them terribly throughout her life. We see a young aboriginal person struggling to understand who she really is, where she belongs, how to best live her life, learning how to make her own decisions and to trust her own judgement. That is one of the tragic legacies of residential schools: they stole the identities of those who survived; they stunted the growth of independence, decision-making, self-confidence and trust. That is one part of why so many survivors, and their children and grandchildren have had to work so hard to reclaim their cultural and personal heritage.

So, for those who say that many former students were not abused, that many received a good education; for those who try to find the good in the system, this book is an eye-opener that even the good was not really so good for the vast majority of students.
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ISBN

1476795177 / 9781476795171
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