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“Joseph Boyden's novel is, simply, beautiful: you will lose yourself in the richness of its prose and the ever-deepening puzzles it inveigles you into. Through Black Spruce is fluent, involving fiction, and as good an advertisement as any for unforgiving wilderness living.”
—Tim Teeman, The Times
“This complex and interesting novel is all about strong family bonds.”
—Hot Stars
“a remarkable view into a lost world dismantled so brutally by the white 'wemestikushu'... Boyden guides us through customs, mythologies and rituals that attend life in the bush.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“mesmerising. In the wild, dreams are prophetic and spiritual truths revealed... his characters are most moving when revelations occur in small, quite moments.”
—Julie Wheelwright, The Independent
“It is a powerful novel of place and the ties that bind families... A fine achievement, Through Black Spruce is extraordinary.”
—Irish Examiner
“love, betrayal and loss in the wild and frozen Canadian wilderness. A strangely haunting read.”
—Choice
“Alternating between life at its most elemental and most decadent, Boyden's tale skilfully reflects the Indians' struggle to embrace modern society.”
—Anthony Gardner, Mail On Sunday
"Boyden is meticulous about details regarding weather, trapping, building a shelter, flying a small plane, the proper use of tools, surviving in a hostile environment, killing animals for food and their skins, not for sport — and the feeling of being out of place anywhere else...a poignant look at the unbreakable, demanding bonds of family."
—The Seattle Times
"Powerful and powerfully told. . .Much of this novel reflects its crisp, poetic title…Will speaks with the straight-faced good humor of Louise Erdrich's Nanapush…in the novel's most moving section, Will flees to live along in wilderness few people ever even see. It's an experience beautifully rendered in the raw poetry of Boyden's prose."
—The Washington Post
“Anguished, angry Uncle Will’s revenge drama is almost perfect in pitch and execution. Tragedy and comedy unspool together in a startlingly casual manner when Will speaks, they way they do in life. When Boyden is at his best, as he often is here, he is matchless.”
—The Minneapolis Star Tribune
“With Through Black Spruce, Boyden again immortalizes a territory dealt brilliantly by writers such as Margaret Atwood and, more recently, Stef Penney. Taking a hard look at the tenderness of beasts, it is a moving portrait of the Canadian outback.”
—The Chicago Sun Times
“Thrilling…secures Boyden’s place as a premier young writer, among those living north of the U.S. border or anywhere else.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Readers will find themselves once again drawn into Boyden's enchanted, troubled world of the far north, of native cultures coming into conflict with the incursion of the evils of the modern, secular world."
—New Orleans Time Picayune
"Powerful…richly textured…an intelligent, multilayered accomplishment."
—Publishers Weekly
"Mesmerizing…Boyden does a remarkable job of communicating the almost unbearable tension generated by attempting to reconcile the unavoidable duality of the narrators' lives."
—ALA Booklist
—Toronto Life, Best of Fall edition
"Joseph Boyden's name sprang onto reading lists three years ago with Three Day Road, an astonishing story of two Cree snipers fighting with a Canadian regiment in the Great War. It won a clutch of prizes, including the Amazon.ca/Books in Print First Novel Award, which hailed the book as a "breath-taking debut." With his second novel, the powerful and compelling Through Black Spruce, Boyden not only fulfills that promise, but settles in as a major voice in Canadian fiction… Boyden's second novel assures this remote corner of the country and its citizens a permanent place in the Canadian literary landscape. Given the rich cast of minor characters in Through Black Spruce, we can only hope for more"
—The Gazette (Montreal)
"With Through Black Spruce coming after Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden is creating a new imaginary vision of this country and its people – so imaginary that it is inescapably real."
—John Ralston Saul, author of A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada
"I don't usually blurb friends, but Joseph's book is so great that I have to break my rules. Buy this book; read this book. You will love it, too."
—National Book Award winning author Sherman Alexie, author of Reservation Blues
"Through Black Spruce is an arresting novel with unexpected twists and turns. It's also an important contribution to the Native literary voice in this country."
—Tomson Highway, Author of Kiss Of The Fur Queen
"Joseph Boyden achieves a beautiful balance between his characters and nature, between the hardships of contemporary life and their strong connection to the past."
—Nino Ricci, Author of The Origin Of Species and Testament
Acclaim for Three Day Road
"It's gripping, wrenching, eye-opening, illuminating, stirring, moral (not moralistic) fiction, rooted in closely observed fact ... Boyden, like Homer in The Iliad, is precise and unflinching in his descriptions of the ways in which soldiers fall in battle ... [Three Day Road ] is a remarkable achievement, and a breathtaking debut."
—The Globe and Mail
"The writing is minimalist, the characters vivid, the pace measured, the hold on the reader firm ... [Three Day Road] will stir up controversy, win awards, hit bestseller lists, and spawn a feature film. Count on it."
—The Gazette (Montreal)
"Three Day Road, his first novel, will stand beside Timothy Findley's classic The Wars as a moving account of the Great War from a Canadian perspective, but Boyden has delivered something new ... The cinematic battle scenes blaze with intensity and the riveting climax of the boys' friendship feels brutal and inevitable. It satisfies even as it shocks ... the writing is glorious and shines with real immediacy ... Boyden is a remarkable storyteller. Three Day Road is an unforgettable and valuable depiction of the aboriginal Canadian experience in the First World War and at home."
— National Post
"You will never forget these two young Cree snipers plunged in the horror of the First World War, where the enemy was so close that one could smell him. A beautifully written and haunting story of survival and innocence shattered, of friendship, death, redemption, and love of the land. The three protagonists, Xavier, Elijah, and Niska, will be in my heart forever. Please, please don't miss it!"
—Isabel Allende
"Three Day Road is as fine a novel as I have seen during the five years I have been reading first novels. My prediction is that it will win every award for which it is nominated, and that it will become a Canadian and international classic."
—W.P. Kinsella, Books in Canada
"The extraordinary richness of Boyden's prose and his material, both in the forgotten history he's recovered and his electric metaphors, make Three Day Road one of the finest novels in an already rich national tradition."
—Maclean’s
"Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road is a brilliant novel. You will suffer a bit, but it's overwhelmingly worth the voyage."
—Jim Harrison
"Three Day Road is a devastatingly truthful work of fiction, and a masterful account of hell and healing. This is a grave, grand, and passionate book."
—Louise Erdrich
"Three Day Road is that rarest of books: It works on different levels for different readers. It can be enjoyed as a military history, a study of the tragedy of First Nations people in Canada, or simply as a strong literary novel set again a First World War backdrop. Read it and see for yourself."
—The Vancouver Sun
"A tale that's pure magic ... Boyden's braided stories twine together to a surprisingly gentle ending. There is death—many deaths—but there is also rebirth and beauty in this author's passionate storytelling as in the world he describes."
—Straight.com
"Three Day Road [is] a stunning, epic story ... has a greatness about it..."
—Winnipeg Free Press
"This poignant tale weaves together magic, hubris, and plain good storytelling, making it one of the best Canadian literature offerings of the season."
—Calgary Herald
"Perhaps the most startling success of this book is the way it combines a tale of racial and cultural displacement with a mystic saga... He guides us through immensely complex stories with subtlety and grace."
—Independent on Sunday
"There have been so many fine novels inspired by the First World War that to read one that is not just harrowing, but fresh, comes as a pleasant surprise ... (it's) a fully rounded work of fiction which, after a quiet opening, develops into a real page-turner... His portrait of an indigenous people who are, in their way, hunted to near-extinction is poignant and convincing."
—Sunday Telegraph
"Boyden strips away unnecessary embellishments and tells his story with the starkness and simplicity that does justice to the raw worlds of bush and trench. It is an absorbing read, with chilling, exhaustive detail about the butchery of animals and soldiers. But the net effect is rewarding—hallucinatory, even—as the reader is drawn into the Cree network of spirits, voices, and stories."
—Scotland on Sunday
"It takes an exceptionally intense and clear vision for a writer to persuade us that there is anything new to be said about the Great War, now creeping steadily towards its centenary anniversary. Yet every now and then a book comes along (or, in the case of Pat Barker, a trilogy) that rescues from the mire and carnage a genuinely new perspective on the awful events of 1914-1918. Focusing on the rarely told stories of indigenous people enlisted into the Canadian army, Joseph Boyden's first novel, Three Day Road, is one such book... What sets Boyden's writing alongside other notable war novels is the way in which the fighting, for all the grim detail, does not dominate his other, broader themes. He succeeds in driving the narrative along with sufficient dramatic incident to satisfy his brothers, but what haunts the book are the more insidious developments offsetting the conflict in Europe."
—The Glasgow Herald
"Simply, beautifully, Boyden takes us into the minds and hearts of his characters. The result is an otherworldly reading experience ... this is that rare novel that illuminates the past for the present—for all time, in fact."
—New Orleans Times Picayune
"Three Day Road is a compelling read, beautifully told, and timeless in its lessons."
—Rick Bass
"There are also lyrical moments which posses an eerie power—especially where Boyden writes about the northern landscape and the human relationship to it. He has illuminated a forgotten corner of the Great War and that, in itself, is a prodigious achievement."
—The Independent
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