Book 14 of 2019 The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative

This is the 2nd book by Thomas King I have read in the last few years [here is the first].

It is interesting to read his books because up until 7 years ago the only way I knew anything about King was from listening to the Dead Dog Cafe on the radio. The books are not like the radio show. Well I guess there is a wry, dry humor in both.

I liked this book.  Much of what King had to say about the difference between being the Indian people look for and the Indian one actually is he covers in his later book The Inconvenient Indian however it is helpful information to see again.

I really liked the way King chooses to open each chapter with the same story, it gives a good continuity. Same with teh fact that the concluding paragraphs of each chapter are almost identical. Humans are peoples of stories. In our rationalistic scientific Western World we seem to have forgotten that. Well we think we have. I have noticed that it is story that helps us understand our rational scientific lives more than theories and proofs.

The best part of the book is the Afterword, that is where King pushes us to consider what might happen if we told ourselves a different story than the one we currently tell. Stories  are powerful. And, as King often reminds us, they are really all we have.