Human and not-so-human relationships in ‘Monkey Beach’

Reviewed by Shirley Honyust

Monkey Beach, British Columbia, is named for innumerable sightings of B’gwus, alias Sasquatch. Loosely translated from Haisla, his name means “the wild man of the woods”. He is described as being quite tall, with thick brown hair on his chest, arms and legs. As many as twenty B’gwus have been sighted together on various occasions, though tangible proof of his existence is still to be found. The World Weekly Globe promised it would pay up to thirty thousand dollars to anyone who got a picture of Sasquatch.

Lisamarie is Eden Robinson’s protagonist in Monkey Beach, and she goes to great lengths to describe the exact location of the village of Kitimat, where she grew up, as well as the location of the fishing waters where her younger brother, Jimmy and the boat he took out to Area 8, have disappeared. No Clues are found to his whereabouts and Jimmy is presumed dead.

“How do you do medicine?” Lisamarie asks Ma-ma-oo, her paternal grandmother answers this and other endless question, as her granddaughter strives to learn as much as possible about the culture while her grandmother is still close at hand.

The essence of the story is based on the way that Lisamarie processes her grief over the loss of Jimmy and their uncle Mick. Through reviewing the life she has lived growing up with Jimmy, she reveals much of the sorrow and regret that she feels about withholding secrets, from Jimmy and from others. Many of those secrets are encoded in visions or “peculiar dreams” that she experiences before and at the time of Jimmy’s passing. References are made to a spiritual connectedness that is tied to the legends and stories that Lisamarie receives from her elders and the significance of these become increasingly more profound as she reflects on the mileposts of her timeline.

Laugh with her as she relives her escapades with Jimmy and as she churns up memories of the history she has shared with him and with their family and friends. Realize that your own physical heart, like Lisamarie’s, is encoded with teachings about the interconnectedness with “others”, meaning relationships with other humans as well as other-than-human beings.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson, published in 2000 by Alfred A. Knopf in Canada, ISBN is 0-676-97075-3.