Fire Song
Synopsis
Shane is still reeling from the suicide of his kid sister, Destiny. How could he have missed the fact that she was so sad? He tries to share his grief with his girlfriend, Tara, but she’s too concerned with her own needs to offer him much comfort. What he really wants is to be able to turn to the one person on the rez whom he loves—his friend, David.
Things go from bad to worse as Shane’s dream of going to university is shattered and his grieving mother withdraws from the world. Worst of all, he and David have to hide their relationship from everyone. Shane feels that his only chance of a better life is moving to Toronto, but David refuses to join him. When yet another tragedy strikes, the two boys have to make difficult choices about their future together.
With deep insight into the life of Indigenous people on the reserve, this book masterfully portrays how a community looks to the past for guidance and comfort while fearing a future of poverty and shame. Shane’s rocky road to finding himself takes many twists and turns, but ultimately ends with him on a path that doesn’t always offer easy answers, but one that leaves the reader optimistic about his fate.
Adam Garnet Jones
Adam Garnet Jones (Ka-nîpawit Iskotêk) is a Cree filmmaker and writer who grew up in Edmonton and the B.C. interior. Adam’s mother died when he was just four months old, leaving him and his sister often in the care of an abusive guardian. Adam was a scared, lonely kid who learned to protect himself by shutting himself off from the world and making himself as small and as quiet as possible. Books and films were his only escape from a childhood marked by secret sadness and abuse.
Since Adam began writing and making films as a teenager, most of his work can be seen as a gradual unveiling of the private self that he spent his childhood trying to hide. Much of Adam’s work deals with stories focused around sexuality, abuse, suicide, depression, and Indigenous cultural identity. Soon after Adam began making films, he started to help other youth share their own stories. It was through this sharing that he learned just how frequent the experiences of isolation, hopelessness, and despair are for LGBT and Two-Spirited people.
The story for Fire Song (Spring 2018) was inspired by Adam’s own experiences as a teenager, by the experiences of the brave, resilient LGBT and Two-Spirited young people he has come to know, and by those who have been lost. Adam lives in Toronto.
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