Escape Planning

In the penultimate chapter of My Indian Summer, the twelve-year-old protagonist, Hunter, is shocked to learn that his mother, a residential school survivor, once wanted to become a nurse. He hates Margarette, after all. Her drinking, her abuse, and all her other parental failures make it impossible for him to feel safe at home, let alone loved. Knowledge of her past complicates things, and although he senses “something new under his anger and fear,” he’s not ready to think about what that means. Hunter is in survival mode, and he must flee his mother and Red Rock, British Columbia, the small northern town in which Joseph Kakwinokanasum sets his debut novel.

The year is 1979, and Hunter has been ­preparing for his escape — a goal that drives the first two-thirds of the book. He collects and returns glass bottles for the deposits so he can “turn Margarette’s messes into...