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A review by pricklybriar
The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir by Joseph Auguste Merasty
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this book. Augie’s story is important, and I’m glad that the acclaim his memoir received has helped raise awareness about residential schools in Canada. Even today, I think a number of Canadians are in denial of the atrocities committed by governments and churches against Indigenous children, which ultimately amount to genocide.
However, I’m troubled by how his recollections were edited by David Carpenter. Carpenter is initially quite dismissive of Augie’s request for help in writing his memoir, and at no point after deciding to do so does he take steps to facilitate Augie’s telling of his story. Rather than coming to his cabin, as Augie initially asks him to do, he maintains a decade long phone/written correspondence and meets him in person only once before he must finally track him down again to sign the contract for his manuscript to be published. Considering how much distance Carpenter put between himself and Augie, I wonder why he decided to edit his memoir to begin with?
I think Carter also expresses some problematic ideas around assimilation/integration of Indigenous peoples in his introduction. For instance, hoping that First Nations writes will some day recover from intergenerational religious trauma to attend one of his writers’ retreats that is held in an abbey. If he really valued the perspectives of Indigenous writers, could he not advocate for a retreat to be held in a setting that is less hostile to them? There are more examples of this, but I found this to be one that really exemplifies the editor’s reluctance to engage with his privilege or participate in meaningful reconciliation if it inconveniences him.
In my edition, Carpenter ties up his postscript by saying that this isn’t so much a narrative of Europeans enforcing their will on First Nations people, but “the common humanity of people locked in a classic struggle to save their children from the evils of coercion, abuse, and cultural extinction”. As if this is something all Canadians have and equal grasp of. I think Carpenter really missed the mark here and demonstrates a limited understanding of the specific reasons residential schools were created and how their legacy continues to be perpetuated through over representation of Indigenous children in care. This is not only misguided, but also insidious in its underselling of the the responsibility Canadians should feel to participate in repairing the damage done by residential schools.
Augie’s story is moving and deeply personal. I really wish that so much of my bandwidth in reading this account hadn’t been absorbed by Carpenter’s mishandling of it.
However, I’m troubled by how his recollections were edited by David Carpenter. Carpenter is initially quite dismissive of Augie’s request for help in writing his memoir, and at no point after deciding to do so does he take steps to facilitate Augie’s telling of his story. Rather than coming to his cabin, as Augie initially asks him to do, he maintains a decade long phone/written correspondence and meets him in person only once before he must finally track him down again to sign the contract for his manuscript to be published. Considering how much distance Carpenter put between himself and Augie, I wonder why he decided to edit his memoir to begin with?
I think Carter also expresses some problematic ideas around assimilation/integration of Indigenous peoples in his introduction. For instance, hoping that First Nations writes will some day recover from intergenerational religious trauma to attend one of his writers’ retreats that is held in an abbey. If he really valued the perspectives of Indigenous writers, could he not advocate for a retreat to be held in a setting that is less hostile to them? There are more examples of this, but I found this to be one that really exemplifies the editor’s reluctance to engage with his privilege or participate in meaningful reconciliation if it inconveniences him.
In my edition, Carpenter ties up his postscript by saying that this isn’t so much a narrative of Europeans enforcing their will on First Nations people, but “the common humanity of people locked in a classic struggle to save their children from the evils of coercion, abuse, and cultural extinction”. As if this is something all Canadians have and equal grasp of. I think Carpenter really missed the mark here and demonstrates a limited understanding of the specific reasons residential schools were created and how their legacy continues to be perpetuated through over representation of Indigenous children in care. This is not only misguided, but also insidious in its underselling of the the responsibility Canadians should feel to participate in repairing the damage done by residential schools.
Augie’s story is moving and deeply personal. I really wish that so much of my bandwidth in reading this account hadn’t been absorbed by Carpenter’s mishandling of it.