Moon of The Crusted Stone is a novel about a Northern Ontario First Nations reserve and their struggle with a long power outage in their community. The book is told from the point of view of a fictional character named Evan Whitesky. Evan Whitesky is a First Nations man in his mid to late 20’s with a partner and two kids. He works in maintenance for public works and he likes to go hunting in his spare time. I believe that the author made a good choice choosing him to be the narrator for this story.
Image via CTV News
For a character to be a good narrator in a story they have to be close to a lot of the action. This makes for an interesting story with not much unknown information. Evan knows a lot of the other important characters in this story such as Justin Scott, Chief Terry, and Walter Meegis. Justin Scott is the antagonist in this story and he is the leader of a small “cult” that lives in the duplexes. Chief Terry is the leader in Evan’s community, although he is not a very good leader because he gets other people to make decisions for him. Walter Meegis works alongside Chief Terry and he assists him with making decisions and band council duties. These characters are important in this story because they incite events and they hold lots of power. Evan knowing and interacting with these characters, makes him aware of the events in the story and he is able to directly be a part of them.
For a character to be a great narrator, it is also nice for them to have their own story line too unless they are mainly focusing on another character. Evan’s story is mainly about how he tries to keep his family safe and alive during the power outage. In the book, there is a part where he creates a tipi for his partner and kids that included food, blankets, and a fire. He also cares for his parents and other people he is close to such as Aileen. He cares by frequently checking up on them outside of his job (checking up on the elders in the community).
In conclusion, Evan Whitesky is the right choice for a narrator in Moon of The Crusted Stone because of he is close to the action of the story and he has his own story line.