Medicine River by Thomas King

First published: 1989

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of work: The 1980’s

Locale: Alberta, Canada

Principal Characters:

• Will Sampson, the narrator and protagonist of the book, a forty-year-old Native American
• Harlen Bigbear, Will’s best friend and basketball teammate, an assertive, often dominating person
• Louise Heavyman, a woman courted by Will
• Rose Sampson, Will’s mother, long abandoned by her husband
• James Sampson, Will’s father, a mysterious and elusive figure
• Jake Pretty Weasel, a friend of Will who commits suicide
• Susan Adamson, a former girlfriend of Will
• David Plume, a Native American militant

The Novel

Medicine River chronicles the lives of a group of contemporary Native Americans in Western Canada. The novel is divided into eighteen short chapters. The story is recounted by the protagonist, Will Sampson, in an amiable, conversational fashion, with frequent flashbacks to earlier portions of his life.

The novel begins with an encounter between Will and Harlen Bigbear. Harlen is an entrepreneur who has set Will up in his own photography business. Harlen is Will’s best friend, but there is something unpredictable about him. Harlen is much more dynamic than the stolid Will, and he lives life at a faster and more stressful pace. Beneath Will’s placid exterior, though, all sorts of psychological depths simmer. These are hinted at as Will remembers contemplating letters written long ago by his long-vanished father to his mother, Rose. Rose catches Will reading the letters and reprimands him. Will realizes that his life will remain unsettled until he comes to terms with the enigma of his father.

Harlen speaks to Will again soon after. This time, Harlen attempts to recruit Will to play on a local basketball team, the Medicine River Friendship Centre Warriors. The team’s star player, Clyde Whiteman, cannot play at the moment, and Harlen urges Will to substitute for him. Will is skeptical, doubting his own ability. His brother James, a gifted artist, seems to have all the talent in the family, whereas Will sees himself as merely an ordinary person who somehow muddles through life. Notwithstanding his fears, Will agrees to join the team. At forty, he is not exactly in championship-quality shape. Yet with the help of some coaxing from Harlen, he fits well onto the team.

Harlen also helps to activate Will’s private life. He points out that Louise Heavyman, who is the tax accountant for both men, is an attractive woman. None too subtly, Harlen urges Will to court Louise. Will is almost persuaded when, shockingly, he learns that Louise is pregnant by another man and is about to give birth. Whereas most men would be dissuaded at this point, Will takes the news in stride. He asks Louise for a date, not even mentioning her condition.

Soon, Louise calls Will to drive her to the hospital when her labor begins. There seems to be an unspoken understanding between Will and Louise that, despite the unusual circumstances of their relationship, they are both comfortable with the situation. The baby is born and is named Wilma, but Will jokingly calls her South Wing. This sounds like a traditional Indian name, but in fact it is derived from the south wing of the hospital, where the baby is born.

Jake Pretty Weasel is one of the best players on the basketball team, but it is also known that he beats his wife, January. When it is learned that Jake has shot himself, some people suspect that January has in fact murdered her husband, whether in retaliation or in self-defense. Because of Catholic prohibitions against suicide, a Mormon clergyman officiates at the funeral; the Canadian headquarters of Mormonism, Cardston, is quite near the fictional Medicine River. It turns out that Jake has in fact shot himself, but that January has forged a suicide note because she knew that people would suspect her. When January explains this to Will and Harlen, they are accepting and compassionate. After a while, Will and Harlen forget the tawdry and painful end to Jake’s life, and they retain their fond memories of him as friend and teammate.

The basketball team is becoming a more close-knit, cohesive fraternity, but Will’s feelings about his vanished father are still unresolved. He reveals that, for years, he has lied when asked about his father, saying that he is an engineer, photographer, or lawyer. These lies are an attempt to evade the embarrassment and hurt that Will feels at his father’s abandonment of him. As time goes on, Will’s fantasies become more elaborate. Will’s mother once gave him a photograph of his father, but this sample of reality did not assuage his emotional disquiet.

As the basketball team tours the western areas of Canada and the United States, Harlen pressures Will to contact Louise again. Will recalls a former relationship with a Toronto woman, Susan Adamson, who attempts to draw Will into the urban excitement of contemporary Canadian culture. Will begins a relationship with her. Yet when he calls her at home, to his shock her daughter answers, revealing that Susan is married. Beneath Susan’s facade of sophistication are qualities that the novel exposes as hypocritical and immoral.

Will and Harlen drive down to the site of the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer, the most famous event in Native American history, but it is closed for the night. Their basketball team is improved by the return of the gifted Clyde Whiteman, but Whiteman soon leaves the team again when he is jailed for stealing a car.

Will becomes closer to Louise and her daughter, prompting Harlen to comment that Will should marry Louise. As the two become closer, Will again flashes back to the end of his relationship with Susan Adamson and further reveals to the reader that his mother died when he was living in Toronto.

David Plume, a member of the militant American Indian Movement (AIM), is arrested after a man who had taunted him has been shot. Will believes that David committed the crime, but he sympathizes with his predicament. Louise goes into Edmonton to see Harold, the father of South Wing. Will worries that she will marry him. Louise, however, returns to Medicine River and Will. The reader gets the impression that the happiness Will experiences with Louise and her daughter will finally heal the wounds inflicted upon him by his vanished father.

The Characters

Will Sampson is a Native American professional photographer. He is forty and unmarried. The disappearance of his father has left him with unresolved emotional tensions. He is not only the narrator of the book but also the emotional center of the subtle social milieu of Medicine River. The other characters are defined by their interaction with Will. They establish an interpersonal atmosphere in the book that establishes a community whose whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Harlen Bigbear is Will’s best friend. He is energetic and innovative and often motivates Will to do things he otherwise would not do.

Louise Heavyman is courted by Will. She has a daughter, South Wing. Louise is an imperfect yet sympathetic character. She communicates largely through subtle, indirect hints, though her emotional language is readily understood by Will.

Rose Sampson, Will’s mother, knows that Will has been affected by the disappearance of his mysterious and enigmatic father. She attempts to heal her son’s emotional wounds, but she can never quite succeed during her life. She has died when Will sets up his photography business in Medicine River, so she is presented exclusively in flashback.

Jake Pretty Weasel is an abusive husband who commits suicide. His fate highlights by contrast Will’s warmth toward Louise.

David Plume, a Native American militant, provides a contrast to the softspoken, nuanced character of Will. He also is a symbol of the lingering discontent felt among contemporary Native Americans.

Susan Adamson, a sophisticated Toronto woman who once was Will’s girlfriend, is an unsympathetic character who helps the reader to recognize the positive values held by Will and Louise at the end of the book. She is presented exclusively in flashback.

Critical Context

Medicine River was published in Canada in 1989 and released in the United States in 1992. It was King’s first novel and was enthusiastically received in both countries. King has since published another novel, Green Grass, Running Water (1993), a more expansive look at many of the same themes and questions that concerned him in his first work of fiction. King’s second novel delves more fully into the visionary potential of the Native American past and present than does Medicine River.

King is now counted as one of the leading contemporary Native American writers. He teaches in the departments of American and Native American Studies at the University of Minnesota. King is a Canadian-born man teaching in the United States whose work centers on a Native American identity common to both countries. In this way, King’s life summarizes the contradictions that animate and nourish the lives of his characters.

Bibliography

Davenport, Gary. “Fiction and the Furniture of Consciousness.” Sewanee Review 100 (Spring, 1992): 323-330. Compares Medicine River to works by James Welch, Wayne Johnson, Robert Olmstead, William Hoffman, and Ellen Akins. Discusses the relationship between the characters and the places these novelists create. Concludes that vivid imagery of “place” increases the value and authenticity of the novels.

Hemesath, James B. Review of Medicine River, by Thomas King. Library Journal 115 (August, 1990): 143. Addresses the novel’s use of humor and characterization, as well as its engagement with Native American concerns.

King, Thomas. “Godzilla Versus Post-Colonial.” World Literature Written in English 30 (Autumn, 1990): 10-16. Supplies some of the crucial intellectual background to the novel. King discusses the necessary differences between an inside and outside perspective on Native American concerns. King critiques the “postcolonial” approaches prevalent in current literary discussions of works by minorities, charging that they slight the full historical amplitude of Native American experience.

King, Thomas. Interview by Constance Rooke. World Literature Written in English (Autumn, 1990): 62-76. King places himself in Canadian, Native American, and literary contexts.

King, Thomas. “Thomas King.” Interview by Jace Weaver. Publishers Weekly 240 (March 8, 1993): 56. This interview emphasizes the themes of social comedy in King’s two novels. King makes valuable comments on how he is influenced by ideas of oral tradition.