On How It’s Told

Sheila Murray is a documentary filmmaker and grassroots organizer in Hamilton, Ontario. Considering her background in social justice and her work on climate change adaptation, as well as her extensive research on Black communities in Canada, she might have written non-fiction on the themes of intersectionality and anti-oppression. Instead, with Finding Edward, she offers readers a clear-sighted and deeply felt novel, which reminds us there are more ways of knowing what happened in the past than just knowing what happened. This is a powerful debut that considers the history and the present of Black people through a truly vibrant set of characters.

As a boy in Sturge Town, Jamaica, Cyril liked to walk down the middle of the road with his eyes closed, feeling “his way step by step, walking not at all slowly.” As a young man in Toronto’s Mount Dennis neighbourhood, living in...