Book Review: Tyson Stewart’s debut novel a fearless tale of man reconnecting with Anishinaabe origins

Advertisement 1 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Breadcrumb Trail Links HomeCultureBooks Book Review: Tyson Stewart's debut novel a fearless tale of man reconnecting with Anishinaabe origins Author of the article: By Elizabeth Kelly Published Aug 31, 2026 4 minute read Join the conversation Tyson Stewart. Credit: Megan Buffam Article content If all stories can be reduced to a finite number of archetypal plot points, then the true genius of the novel lies in its talent for potentially telling the same old story in ways that make you feel as if you are hearing it for the first time. Article content In his debut novel, The Return of the Nish, author Tyson Stewart, associate professor of Indigenous Studies at Nipissing University in Thunder Bay, wastes no time confronting us with the stuff of myth in this fraught tale of reckoning between father and son. The father, in this case, may not be Saturn as depicted in the haunting painting by Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, but he’s not above sinking his teeth into bare flesh and drawing blood. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content The Return of the Nish Tyson Stewart Cormorant Article content Article content The first chapter is equal parts beginning and ending as 27-year-old Gerry Smith sits in a courtroom watching his shocked father weeping as he’s sentenced to 10 years in prison. Dale King may be guilty, but it’s Gerry who feels guilty for turning him in and testifying against him. Article content “What kind of a son am I?” he asks himself, knowing it would never occur to Dale to similarly inquire: “What kind of a father am I?” Article content His sour, singular, criminal experience of the father who abandoned him in the womb, launches Gerry, the novel’s blond, freckle-faced narrator and protagonist, on a harrowing journey of self-discovery that achieves fuller universal expression when viewed through the powerful lens of the Anishinaabemowin word, biskaabiiyang, or “returning to ourselves.” Article content Sensitive but walled-in, the product of a teen pregnancy, Gerry, raised in New Liskeard, near Temagami, by his mother, Amy Smith, and her parents, knows Dale, a star athlete, only by reputation — local admiration for his athleticism juxtaposed against Amy’s simmering resentments for the high-spirited boy she loved who did not love her back. Article content Article content Not until he’s an adult,…