Day One "The Orenda"

I cracked my hard copy of The Orenda by Joe last night.  He has different characters narrating without using their names in the titles of each section which isn't helping me distinguish who is who. His writing style is simple and clear so it didn't take me long to sort them out and I am only in 36 pages. 

Had to look up the meaning of Orenda: 'a supernatural force believed by the Iroquois Indians to be present in varying degrees in all objects or persons, and to be the spiritual force by which human accomplishment is attained or accounted for', coined by US ethnologist JNB Hewitt from the Mohawk 'or na'. I did find the word defined in the text later on.

These are two  different interviews Joe gave about The Orenda. He almost appears to be two different people although I cannot blame him for what happened in the second interview. What courage it must have taken for him to walk out! I was annoyed with the interviewers in the first five minutes. He did well to last as long as he did.

I want to pause here to give a shout out to a few of our Canadian interviewers: George Stroumboulopouplos, Jian Gomeshi, Peter Mansbridge, Michael Enright, Eleanor Wachtel and Sheila Rogers who ask good questions and show respect for their guests' intelligence. Even at those times when their guests don't seem to have much.

I am liking the book now that I can put a voice with the face of the author, which for some reason makes me start out liking the book more. I am trying to write books that have multiple characters leading at different times and it is challenging me to read someone's work that really knows how to do this well. He doesn't dwell long with one character (at least not yet)so that I forget who the other "stars" are. So far so good.