Between the Cushions

About halfway through Wayne Arthurson’s new novella, The Red Chesterfield, the reader learns that the protagonist, M, is Indigenous. The reader then comes to see that this fact is entirely irrelevant to the story. In a way, that’s the whole point: that the protagonist’s race is incidental. It has nothing to do with the actual plot, which can be described as an unconventional mystery involving a red chesterfield, a dismembered foot, and a cast of colourful characters mixed together with a dash of Kafka.

Arthurson, who is of Cree and French Canadian descent, has taken issue with a mystery sub-genre he calls “Indigenous crime fiction.” In a Quill & Quire article in 2018, he lamented the fact that the field is rife with mysteries by non-Indigenous authors that exploit well-worn stereotypes: the stoic warrior, the magic Indian, the corrupt chief, the wise elder, and so on. Perversely, and sadly, their proliferation creates a false authenticity, making...