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Book review: Surviving surprises in the city

Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett is an endearing graphic novel about two Indigenous youth surviving high school together while also highlighting, in a haunting and delicate way, the experience of surviving in a city which hides unpredictable hostility. Gentle in the most powerful of ways, the story of Dez and Miikwan was an instant classic in my eyes.
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Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett is an endearing graphic novel about two Indigenous youth surviving high school together while also highlighting, in a haunting and delicate way, the experience of surviving in a city which hides unpredictable hostility. Gentle in the most powerful of ways, the story of Dez and Miikwan was an instant classic in my eyes.

Returning to the city of Winnipeg after reading The Barren Grounds, a novel by David A. Robertson that I reviewed two weeks ago, Surviving the City is an equally refreshing and endearing story set in a familiar city. This time around, however, the story is rooted firmly in our reality. Told through the eyes of Dez and Miikwan, Surviving the City is an almost day in the life story about Indigenous friendship, support, and solidarity in the face of the human rights crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people that makes Winnipeg, among many other cities and towns in Canada, not as safe as it should be.

Everything about this story and the characters who inhabit it are approached with care and honesty, making this graphic novel feel rich, rounded, and open even through Dez and Miikwan’s darkest moments. The impact of Surviving the City is as much in what is shown as it is in what is spoken. Tasha Spillett’s voice and the story she tells is astoundingly amplified by the soft and deceptively simple illustrations provided by Natasha Donovan. Surviving the City, through the story of Miikwan and Dez, is a project that centers around affirming the rights of Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people to live “with respect and dignity, free from violence.”

Donovan’s illustrations work with Spillett’s story to bring a lot of life and hope to the overwhelming human rights crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women in Canada and the United States which goes a long way towards making the content of this book accessible for people of all ages. For example, Winnipeg’s streets are imagined in Donovan’s drawings as being populated by the ghost-like images of those who would be there if they were not missing or murdered, creating as a visual reminder of the sheer number of people this ongoing human rights crisis has taken from us while also providing a hopeful image of what a city could look like if we found a way to put a stop to this violence.

Surviving the City is a story first and foremost for people who are born into an environment that almost encourages them to disappear. Gorgeous, thoughtful, funny, and unfailingly honest, this graphic novel seeks to protect the memories of those who have been affected by violence while at the same time providing hopeful and real alternatives to this reality. Altogether, I’m really looking forward to following Dez and Miikwan’s story in the next graphic novel in this series, From the Roots Up, which promises to be equally as thoughtful.