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Permanent Astonishment

  • Book
  • Sep 28, 2021
  • #Memoir #Art
Tomson Highway
@TomsonHighway
(Author)
www.goodreads.com
Hardcover
4.6/5 217 ratings
Hardcover Paperback
See on Goodreads
4.27/5 609 ratings
1 Recommender
2 Mentions
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Capricious, big-hearted, joyful: an epic memoir from one of Canada's most acclaimed Indigenous writers and performers Tomson Highway was born in a snowbank on... Show More

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Capricious, big-hearted, joyful: an epic memoir from one of Canada's most acclaimed Indigenous writers and performers

Tomson Highway was born in a snowbank on an island in the sub-Arctic, the eleventh of twelve children in a nomadic, caribou-hunting Cree family. Growing up in a land of ten thousand lakes and islands, Tomson relished being pulled by dogsled beneath a night sky alive with stars, sucking the juices from roasted muskrat tails, and singing country music songs with his impossibly beautiful older sister and her teenaged friends. Surrounded by the love of his family and the vast, mesmerizing landscape they called home, his was in many ways an idyllic far-north childhood. But five of Tomson's siblings died in childhood, and Balazee and Joe Highway, who loved their surviving children profoundly, wanted their two youngest sons, Tomson and Rene, to enjoy opportunities as big as the world. And so when Tomson was six, he was flown south by float plane to attend a residential school. A year later Rene joined him to begin the rest of their education. In 1990 Rene Highway, a world-renowned dancer, died of an AIDS-related illness. Permanent Astonishment: Growing Up in the Land of Snow and Sky is Tomson's extravagant embrace of his younger brother's final words: Don't mourn me, be joyful. His memoir offers insights, both hilarious and profound, into the Cree experience of culture, conquest, and survival.

(From Goodreads)

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Number of Pages: 344

ISBN: 0385696205

ISBN-13: 9780385696203

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Barbara Kay @BarbaraRKay · Apr 3, 2023
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I have referenced Tomson Highway many times. His memoir is a must-read.
Barbara Kay @BarbaraRKay · Apr 1, 2023
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Yes. Everyone should read Tomson Highway's exquisite memoir, Permanent Astonishment. He achieved international success as an artist and musician, and credits his 8 years at a res school for introducing him to music and art and literature.
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