Moon of the Crusted Snow: A Novel

2023 Canada Reads Longlist Selection

National Bestseller

Winner of the 2019 OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award

Shortlisted for the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award

Shortlisted for the 2019/20 First Nation Communities READ Indigenous Literature Award

2020 Burlington Library Selection; 2020 Hamilton Reads One Book One Community Selection; 2020 Region of Waterloo One Book One Community Selection; 2019 Ontario Library Association Ontario Together We Read Program Selection; 2019 Women’s National Book Association’s Great Group Reads; 2019 Amnesty International Book Club Pick

January 2020 Reddit r/bookclub pick of the month

“This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival and will leave readers breathless.” — Publishers Weekly

“Rice seamlessly injects Anishinaabe language into the dialogue and creates a beautiful rendering of the natural world … This title will appeal to fans of literary science-fiction akin to Cormac McCarthy as well as to readers looking for a fresh voice in indigenous fiction.” — Booklist

A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow.

The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.

Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.

Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge, was inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community and won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His debut novel, Legacy, followed in 2014. In 2014, he received the Anishinabek Nation’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in First Nation Storytelling. He now splits his time between Sudbury and Wasauksing.

ISBN: 9781770414006
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: October 02, 2018

“This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival and will leave readers breathless.” — Publishers Weekly“Rice seamlessly injects Anishinaabe language into the dialogue and creates a beautiful rendering of the natural world … This title will appeal to fans of literary science fiction akin to Cormac McCarthy as well as to readers looking for a fresh voice in indigenous fiction.” — Booklist“The creeping tension and vividly drawn landscapes make Waubgeshig Rice’s characters’ choices all the more real.” — Toronto Star“Moon of the Crusted Snow sets itself apart — an apocalypse novel in reverse.” — Globe and Mail“Rice complicates and demands a rethinking of the apocalyptic category itself, which is the book’s greatest revelation and strength … Rice’s writing is measured and he has a lovely ear for the cadence of conversation — humour, rage, and introspection all coming through the dialogue … Rice’s story teaches, but it’s not didactic; it’s original, and somehow takes the frenetic pace of a crisis, slows it down, and shows us its parts.” — Canadian Notes & Queries“Perfect for those who read Iain Reid’s Foe this summer and are looking for something in the same vein.” — The Globe and Mail“All the ingredients that went into this novel are that much more fresh, and make the narrative so rich, because of the way Rice has succeeded in putting them all together.” — CBC Books“This is my go-to pick for the year … it’s such a great book … it's really got this great balance that makes it a go-to gift this season … really good, amazing storytelling.” — Jael Richardson on CBC q“In addition to being a new spin on the tech-pocalypse, it's also an eerie, slightly fabulist novel … If you want a thoughtful, uncanny, snow-bound read that will have you battening your hatches for winter and rethinking what apocalypse means, pick this one up ASAP.” — Book Riot’s Swords & Spaceships“Moon of the Crusted Snow asks how do we live in a good way during the collapse of the infrastructure that supports modern life? For Evan Whitesky, the answer lies in rekindling Ojibwe, the old ways, language and culture. For other characters, when the food runs out, all options are on the table, no matter how gruesome. As the tensions between those surviving the end of modern civilization build to a harrowing conclusion, Rice deftly weaves tender family moments with his brutal survival scenes in the unforgiving northern Ontario winter. Chilling in the best way possible.” — Eden Robinson, award winning author of Monkey Beach and Son of a Trickster