Starlight Tour (and Racism in Saskatoon)

A teen's suspicious death, a shocking police cover-up and a mother's search for truth: this landmark investigation into justice and Canada's Indigenous people is re-issued and updated here for the first time in over a decade.

In 1990, on a brutally cold night, 17-year-old Neil Stonechild disappeared from downtown Saskatoon, last seen in police custody. His frozen body was found three days later in a field outside town. Though his mother pressed for answers, a cursory investigation pinned the blame on the teen himself, dead by alcohol and misadventure. Only in 2000, when two more men were found frozen to death, and a third survived his "starlight tour" at the hands of police, did the truth about Stonechild's fate begin to emerge. Soon one of the country's most prominent Indigenous lawyers was on the case, and an open secret was secret no more.

With exclusive co-operation from the Stonechild family, lawyer Donald Worme, and others, Starlight Tour is an engrossing portrait of rogue cops, racism, obstruction of justice and justice denied, not only to a boy and his family but to an entire nation.

~*~

I have so much to say about this book and the events that it depicts that I don't even know where to start. 

So let me try to start at the beginning (sorry, this may take a while. I expect this may be a very long blog entry with comments about the book intermingled with current events, important political situations at the moment, my current job, my history as a bookstore employee... so many things to talk about...)

This is probably the most important book I have read in a long time, and to be honest, I should have read it more than a decade ago, but at the same time I don't think I would have appreciated it as much then as I do now. 

So... the beginning. My first exposure to this book came WAY back when it was first published when I was working at Coles Bookstore in Market Mall. The publication date on the first edition of this book is November of 2005, so I would have been 22 at the time.  I remember seeing the book (with a different cover than the one above, a stark red, orange, and black with a picture of Neil's face) and that it was very popular at the time (more often than not, that happens with local interest topics) I have always been very clear that I am a book snob and I tend not to read books when they are trendy or popular. I like to discover my own books and then claim that I am why said book becomes popular later. Anywhoo, I digress. I didn't read Starlight Tour then. I had no interest. I was 7 at the time that Neil died, and because of the deaths that were more recent than his I vaguely knew the topic, but wasn't interested in True Crime much back then. I'd rather live in my safe little bubble. 

Fast forward to last week. I am at work and went to cover one of my coworkers while she went on her break. She left her book behind and I noticed it was Starlight Tour, but the cover had changed. I read the back refreshing myself on the book itself (Neil Stonechild's case is common knowledge in Saskatoon, but I couldn't remember the perspective the book took on it, whether it was written before or after the inquiry, etc.), and then I started reading. I got about 25 pages in before she came back from her break and I ordered the book from McNally later that day. I was so encaptured in that first chapter that I knew I would read it immediately once I got it. And that I did. 

I'm not sure if it was my coworker's intention to be reading this book while aftermath of George Floyd's murder and the Black Lives Matter protests were going on in the States, but this really hit me hard how appropriate it was to be reading this book while such overwhelming topics involving racism were going on in the media. I have heard SO MANY people say "thank goodness this doesn't go on in Canada" or "Canadians aren't nearly that bad" or other things of the like that really bring focus to how deluded and sheltered many of us are. The rascism towards First Nations people is HORRID in Canada. Racism IS a problem here. But somehow people aren't seeing it. Which seems to me to boil down to White Priviledge. I could get into that topic a bit more, and make this blog post a book instead, but I think I will just let the following cartoon do the talking for me...

Cartoon by one of my favourite Cartoonists - Nathan Pyle.

OK, back to the actual book itself not that I've gotten down from my soapbox. 

This book is really well written and well researched. There are several images of actual evidence within the book, extremely well documented interviews, and although some minimal aspects of it may be speculation, these speculations are heavily based around undisputed facts. 

That being said, reading this book I recognized that there was also a very evident bias on the part of the authors. Upon reading some of the short reviews on Goodreads, I noticed some people were turned off of this book because of it. But now, don't get me wrong. I don't see a problem with that bias especially given the topic of the book. It was meant to be expository and bring the issues and experiences of everyone involved to the general public; those who do not want to stick strictly to the media's portrayal of events (also, regularily biased) or inquiry transcripts and publications (dry, academic, a law degree may be useful to understand the full impact). Given the outcome of the inquiry, I don't think the bias is particularly unfair. This is a book about Neil Stonechild and the gross injustices that happened to him in his short 17 years. This is NOT a book about the Constables that "allegedly" left him in a field outside of the city to walk back and resulting in him freezing to death.* So, let them have that bias. Recognize that it is there. But also note that every. single. non-fiction. piece of writing in existance has a bias. It is impossible not to have one. Some authors are just better at hiding it than others.

One of the other reasons that I feel I enjoyed this book so much is how close this book hits home to my own life. This is a Saskatoon book through and through. I love how when referencing locations I can picture them easily in my brain. Not because of the descriptions in the book, but because I have BEEN there. If you say Confed. Drive and 33rd st. BOOM! I see it in my brain. I know it. Another reason this hits close to home is that not only that all of these events happened in Saskatoon, where I have lived my entire life, but also that Neil had been a resident of my current place of employment at Kilburn Hall Youth Centre. Many of the employees that worked with Neil have retired or moved on since then, but there are still a handful around that remember him and I actually asked one of my coworkers about him when I was midway through the book. Everything he said to me was consistent with what was said about him in Starlight Tour. When recognizing the bias, I wondered if they were making him seem better than he was, ya know, kinda how sometimes after people pass we only remember the good things about them, but my coworker confirmed that Neil wasn't one of the tough kids to deal with. It was important to me to ask people that knew him from the work environment that I'm in to get a clearer picture. Being at Kilburn Hall we often see kids on their worst days. And some of the kids we deal with are seriously bad kids. Neil was one of the good ones. And it was so important to me to hear this from someone I actually know.

As I said at the beginning of this post: This book is important. The Black Lives Matter movement in the States is at the forefront of our news. George Lloyd's unfortunate death at the hands of Police Officers is an interesting parallel (even though it's not completely the same) to Neil's death. Police brutality and racism is a huge problem in North America right now, and we can't forget people like Neil. We can't forget the victims. So do yourself a favour and if you are from Saskatchewan, and you don't think it happens here, read this book. If you are from anywhere around the world, and need a reminder about why these riots take place, read this book. 

Just read the book. You won't regret it.

*I struggled with how to write this sentence. The two Constables have never been charged, but the inquiry strongly suggests that they are responsible for Neil's death, so I felt I needed to add the word "allegedly", however, I did put the quotation marks around it because I feel it is a technicality. I don't want to get sued or something for defamation. But seriously, in my opinion after the evidence presented in this book... those two are guilty and should have gone to trial for murder of some degree, but evidence... and the burden of proof beyond a doubt... must be hard to find 10 years after the crime is committed. 

Katherine, Anne, and Jane

  

Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir takes on what no fiction writer has done before: creating a dramatic six-book series in which each novel covers one of King Henry VIII's wives. 

~*~

OK, so... I'm just gunna kinda cheat here. 

First, I'm only posting the first sentence of the description of the first book in this series above, because there is not one description that can cover only these three books in the series, and these are the only ones I want to cover at the moment.

And then there's the fact that I'm reviewing three books at once... also kinda cheating. But there are reasons for this! So let me explain...

This is a series that has not been entirely released yet. The first 4 books (wives) are in softcover, the 5th is in Hardcover, and the 6th isn't out yet. 

As is mentioned in the very short description above, each book follows the life of one of Henry VIII's wives. These first three wives' lives overlap. (eg. both Anne and Jane, 2nd and 3rd wives, were ladies for Katherine, the 1st wife, at some point) this means that each of these books overlap chronologically. So yes, I COULD start reading Katherine's and finish it to completion, and then move on to Anne's and so forth, but... that's not how I like to do things. After starting reading Katherine's, I got far enough in that I realized that Anne would now be alive and I felt I should start reading hers, so that I know what each wife was doing at the same time (or close to the same time) as the others. The chapters were often organized by portions of years, so it wasn't too hard to do, and I really felt it enhanced my reading experience, and also my respect for Alison Weir. There were times that these wives interacted, and reading both perspectives on the same circumstance was really fun! Weir was extremely diligent with this throughout the books. 

Alison Weir is one of my favourite authors, and probably my all time favourite Historical Fiction author. She is a very well respected Historian of British Royalty and she has only relatively recently delved into her works of Fiction. Her first novel was Innocent Traitor (my favourite Historical Fiction of all time, read my post on it here), and these novels have really secured her position as my favourite. Another thing I love about Ms Weir, is that she is SO ingrained as a Historian that at the end of each novel, she then has an Author Note about each of the queens and why she went certain directions with their stories, and when there is some dispute amongst historians about certain aspects of these women's stories, she explains both sides and then defends her choices. I feel that gives her and her story that much more credibility. 

It is really hard for me to review these three books separately, hence, why they are all together in one post, because of how I decided to read them. The flipping back and forth between them really made these three books seem like one. They are all amazing, I recommend them all, you don't have to read them like I did, but if you like the history involving these Tudor Queens, I really suggest giving these a go. 

Note: My plan is to read the next three at the same time too. Anna of Kleve (or more commonly Anne of Cleves) had very little overlap with the first three queens and so I did not feel it was necessary to read her at the same time, however she outlives the following two. So I will likely do a post with all three of those ladies together once the last book is released... or in soft cover... if I can wait that long.