The narrative retains this fuzzy quality that makes it difficult to wholly grasp wtf is going on most of the time. There are some genuinely funny scenes and lines, but for the most part reading time and again about these dysfunctional characters getting drunk, high, puking, farting, being horny, enabling one another…it wasn’t all that fun. Except that here the humor takes the backseat.

The kind of scenarios Jared finds himself in would not be out of place in an episode of Shameless. His deadbeat dad is largely absent from his life, his mother has some serious anger issues & is wasted a lot of the time. He bakes weed cookies, gets high or drunk, has bad trips, and gets into scraps with the local douchebags. Our protagonist, Jared, is a Native teen who doesn’t seem all that engaged with the world. Son of a Trickster instead doesn’t quite deliver on those fronts. While Monkey Beach wasn’t necessarily plot-driven, its characters and setting were incredibly compelling.

The story however wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the one from Monkey Beach. The dialogues have this very naturalistic quality that I really enjoyed. In this novel, Robinson once again showcases her ear for language, and the dialogues and conversations peppered throughout the narrative certainly rang true to life (in spite of how bizarre things get towards the end). Having loved Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (one of the most memorable coming of ages that i’ve read in the past few years) I was expecting Son of a Trickster to be just as good. “The world is hard, his mom liked to say. A one-sentence summary for Son of a Trickster could go something like this: slacker boy spends his days getting drunk, high, and/or puking.

Trickster eden robinson