Quickie Review: The Night Wanderer: A Native Gothic Tale by Drew Hayden Taylor
So, there is this teenage girl dealing with teenage girl problems like school and her parents' divorce, and one day a mysterious older guy who only goes out at night moves to town. You know where this story is going, right?
Except not this time!
The Night Wanderer alternates viewpoints between Tiffany Hunter, an Anishinabe girl living on the Otter Lake Reserve, and the vampire formerly known as Owl, who, after four centuries of blood-sucking his way around Europe, has now finally come home under the name "Pierre L'Errant." There is no romance between them whatsoever. Because she is a teenager and he is four hundred years old and has more important things to do anyway.
Tiffany's sections strike a good balance between showing how her problems are both big deals because they do affect her whole life at that moment and also not (all) such big deals in the grand scheme of things. Okay, so she feels like her new white (but not sparkly-white!) boyfriend is saving her from a really tedious life and is all that and a bag of chips, and every little thing that might threaten their relationship (like her dad not approving, or getting grounded) feels like a huge blow - well, okay, that is a big part of her life right now. But learning to judge whether said boyfriend really is as awesome and necessary as all that is also an important part of growing up. Some of her problems, like failing in school, straddle the major/minor problem boundary: on the one hand, school is not actually your whole life; on the other hand, it could seriously affect the few chances she has to not be quite so poor when she grows up, and part of the reason she's failing is because the systemic disregard for Native kids' perspectives (not to mention the casual bigotry of other students) in school is really alienating. So you can both sympathize with her growing feelings of hopelessness and Pierre's eventually snapping at her to get some perspective and grow the hell up.
Pierre, meanwhile, tells the reader some of his story in flashback (he was a normal Anishinabe kid looking for adventure who found himself essentially kidnapped to France, caught smallpox, and was "saved" by being vampirized - infected with European ultra-violence, you could say - and then was both hampered by the travel restriction of not being able to tolerate sunlight and too ashamed to try going home until now) and explores the area, searching for landmarks of his old village. He clearly has some ultimate goal in mind for this homecoming, but we don't know what it is. All we know is that he's fasting for it because it's so important, and that as he gets hungrier, he has an increasingly hard time not eating people...
Tiffany's disconnection from both white society and her own people's past and Pierre's disconnection from everyone and his search for his much-changed home are the constant poignant motifs running through the book, unifying their stories. One of the highlights toward the end is when Pierre shows Tiffany some of the landmarks he's uncovered and has her imagine it as it once was. For the first time, the history truly comes alive to her, and she feels like she's connected to a history where she belongs. (I will not, however, spoil whether he breaks down and eats anyone, Tiffany or those jerk high school kids or otherwise, or what his plan is XD )
It is YA, so it might not be everyone's thing, but it's definitely one of the better YA novels I've read in the past few years. Plus, the vampire is both dangerous and sympathetic and doesn't date the teenager, and the main commentary on romance is Do Not Put Up With Shit!
Except not this time!
The Night Wanderer alternates viewpoints between Tiffany Hunter, an Anishinabe girl living on the Otter Lake Reserve, and the vampire formerly known as Owl, who, after four centuries of blood-sucking his way around Europe, has now finally come home under the name "Pierre L'Errant." There is no romance between them whatsoever. Because she is a teenager and he is four hundred years old and has more important things to do anyway.
Tiffany's sections strike a good balance between showing how her problems are both big deals because they do affect her whole life at that moment and also not (all) such big deals in the grand scheme of things. Okay, so she feels like her new white (but not sparkly-white!) boyfriend is saving her from a really tedious life and is all that and a bag of chips, and every little thing that might threaten their relationship (like her dad not approving, or getting grounded) feels like a huge blow - well, okay, that is a big part of her life right now. But learning to judge whether said boyfriend really is as awesome and necessary as all that is also an important part of growing up. Some of her problems, like failing in school, straddle the major/minor problem boundary: on the one hand, school is not actually your whole life; on the other hand, it could seriously affect the few chances she has to not be quite so poor when she grows up, and part of the reason she's failing is because the systemic disregard for Native kids' perspectives (not to mention the casual bigotry of other students) in school is really alienating. So you can both sympathize with her growing feelings of hopelessness and Pierre's eventually snapping at her to get some perspective and grow the hell up.
Pierre, meanwhile, tells the reader some of his story in flashback (he was a normal Anishinabe kid looking for adventure who found himself essentially kidnapped to France, caught smallpox, and was "saved" by being vampirized - infected with European ultra-violence, you could say - and then was both hampered by the travel restriction of not being able to tolerate sunlight and too ashamed to try going home until now) and explores the area, searching for landmarks of his old village. He clearly has some ultimate goal in mind for this homecoming, but we don't know what it is. All we know is that he's fasting for it because it's so important, and that as he gets hungrier, he has an increasingly hard time not eating people...
Tiffany's disconnection from both white society and her own people's past and Pierre's disconnection from everyone and his search for his much-changed home are the constant poignant motifs running through the book, unifying their stories. One of the highlights toward the end is when Pierre shows Tiffany some of the landmarks he's uncovered and has her imagine it as it once was. For the first time, the history truly comes alive to her, and she feels like she's connected to a history where she belongs. (I will not, however, spoil whether he breaks down and eats anyone, Tiffany or those jerk high school kids or otherwise, or what his plan is XD )
It is YA, so it might not be everyone's thing, but it's definitely one of the better YA novels I've read in the past few years. Plus, the vampire is both dangerous and sympathetic and doesn't date the teenager, and the main commentary on romance is Do Not Put Up With Shit!