Seeking the Center - Softcover

Spitz-Edson VA, Leslie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1944453024 ISBN 13: 9781944453022

Publisher: Cuidono Press, 2016

Synopsis

Agnes Demers is a young Métis woman who grew up playing hockey, skating with the neighborhood kids on the frozen ponds of her hometown, St. Cyp, through the long Saskatchewan winters. For Agnes, hockey is the measure of all things - the ultimate test of passion and power, spirit and skill. But hockey has betrayed her, left her watching from the bleachers - all because she had the miserable luck to be born female.When Agnes moves to Wapahaska to work at the Indian Jewel Box with her friend Jo, she intends to ignore the town's minor-league hockey team, the Prairie Wolves - not to mention her childhood teammate Owen MacKenzie, the Wolves' star center. In fact, she intends to ignore the whole smug, self-congratulatory scene, but it isn't long before she become entangled again with the game she loves, with Owen, and with the team's new enforcer, Claude Doucette, an older player who shares her Native heritage and aspires to live by its warrior creed.Locked in a dizzying three-way tilt, Agnes must seek the center: the balance to stay on her skates, the opening to make a play, and the vision to reclaim her game.

About this title

From the Author:

Trained as a musician, Leslie Spitz-Edson became interested in Métis music and culture while working at Folkways Recordings. Hockey is a more recent obsession, but she is (all too belatedly) learning to play the most beautiful game on the planet.

From the Back Cover:

Seeking the Center is a coming-of-age novel centered around romantic relationships and sports (namely ice hockey), suitable for Young Adult, New Adult, as well as Adult audiences. It also has an ethnic component, as several of the main characters are Métis and/or First Nations people. (First Nations people are the "Native Americans," Indians, or Aboriginal people of Canada. The Métis can be described as their close relatives, because Métis culture formed through the mingling of Indigenous - mainly Cree and Ojibwe - and European - mainly French and Scottish - cultures during the fur trade era, c. 17th-19th centuries).

The novel takes place in the 1990s in Saskatchewan, and follows Agnes Demers, a young Métis/Cree woman who, although she is a talented, committed hockey player, has been pushed out of the sport because of her gender. As a result, the story takes a feminist point of view. Agnes's friend Jo (Joesphine) is a seamstress and fashion design student who suffers abuse at the hands of her boyfriend but, drawing inspiration from her friendships and her Métis heritage, finds a path forward. Owen MacKenzie is a childhood friend and teammate with whom Agnes shares a close bond, in spite of his race - he is white - and who suffers his own growing pains as he rises through the ranks of professional hockey. Claude Doucette is Owen's veteran teammate, a Métis man who serves as both an enforcer on the ice and a protector of the young people in his home community.

Seeking the Center portrays Agnes's journey to self-knowledge through her growing understanding of others around her, particularly hockey players Owen and Claude. She comes to see the sport through their eyes, with all of its potential for good (a means of developing spirit and community, leadership, camaraderie, and physical and mental well-being) and evil (a breeding ground for sexism, racism, enforced conformity, violence and the exploitation of athletes). As she begins to see the complexities of hockey as a game, as an occupation, and as a calling, she also comes to some conclusions about what traits she truly values in others and in herself.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cuidono Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1944453024
• ISBN 13: 9781944453022
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 346