Métis author Cherie Dimaline 'remixes' The Secret Garden to reflect Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities
'The Secret Garden was one of those books that was a part of my childhood.'
Originally aired on Sept. 30, 2023.
On Sept. 30, Canada will mark its fourth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, as well as Orange Shirt Day, a time to commemorate children who died while being forced to attend residential schools, those who survived and made it home, their families and communities still affected by the lasting trauma.
In her latest novel Into the Bright Open, Cherie Dimaline transforms a beloved English children's literature classic by shifting perspectives to allow voices from the Indigenous and queer communities to be spotlighted.
A queer reimagining of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Into the Bright Open follows orphaned girl Mary Lennox as she is sent from her home in Toronto to live with her uncle in the Georgian Bay wilderness. As she adjusts to her new life, one night she discovers Olive, her big-hearted cousin who has been medicated and hidden away in an attic room due to a "nervous condition."
The girls quickly become friends, and with the help of a charming Métis girl named Sophie, Mary starts to dig deeper into family secrets as she attempts to free Olive. One day the girls stumble upon an overgrown, long-forgotten garden — where some of the answers may lie.
Dimaline is an international bestselling Métis author, best known for her YA novel The Marrow Thieves. The Marrow Thieves was defended by Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018 and was named one of Time magazine's top 100 YA novels of all time. Her other books include Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, A Gentle Habit, Empire of Wild and Hunting by Stars.
Dimaline spoke with The Next Chapter's Ryan B. Patrick about Into the Bright Open.
I understand that The Secret Garden holds a special place in your heart in terms of it piquing your imagination. What attracted you to "remix" The Secret Garden?
The Secret Garden was one of those books that was a part of my childhood. It talks about belonging and it offers outcasts a chance for them to access a world that's just for them, and that there's something hidden and tremendous waiting.
Stories like The Secret Garden have stood the test of time and I think they can stand up to the shifting of narrative.- Cherie Dimaline
I think there's something so interesting about taking these stories that we grew up with and studied, and turning them to be from a point of view and a different community, character or experience.
Stories like The Secret Garden have stood the test of time and I think they can stand up to the shifting of narrative. To be from those perspectives and communities that were absolutely around at that time – you know, the queer community is not new, certainly the Indigenous community is not new – it was interesting to me to shift and allow the voice to come from those perspectives in that story frame.
What themes from The Secret Garden did you want to revisit?
There were a lot of things in The Secret Garden that attracted me. One was the transplanting of a young narrator into a different landscape. How you know your surroundings influence not just what you're doing in the way that you're living, but really how you're thinking and your feelings.
One of the things that was also interesting was the original author Frances Hodgson Burnett. She suffered from depression and anxiety and she was looking for some kind of relief at a time when women who had these "complaints" were routinely committed under diagnoses like hysteria.
She was really looking into ways for how the land could help deal with depression, anxiety and mental unrest and how belonging, family and your outlook could really impact your mental wellness. I thought this was the perfect story to explore anxiety in a different timeline, in a different historical context.
What aspects of the original story did you feel most needed a makeover?
Oh my God, the casual racism. Right from the very first chapter, Mary Lennox is throwing around casual racism about servants in India. It's really off-putting and horrible. I find when racism is in those "historical" or earlier works and it's thrown out as like this is just the way things are, it's even more infuriating because of course it's not just the way things are – it's how people made them and then held onto that perspective. For me, I really wanted to get rid of that. I also wanted to keep Mary Lennox as that same sort of obstinate, difficult narrator because I thought of this as an opportunity to really make her learn.
I also wanted to keep Mary Lennox as that same sort of obstinate, difficult narrator because I thought of this as an opportunity to really make her learn.- Cherie Dimaline
I'm going to put her in a situation in a different community where it's not just like in the original, of moving to this remote, English locale and dealing with them.
The shift is that now you're in somebody else's territory and these are the only people who are qualified and have enough patience to really teach you what you need to learn, and really put her through those steps.
I think the magic in this book, as in the original story, is the secret garden. What's the source of that magic?
When you're younger you're still open enough to believe in magic —which of course exists. Those spaces exist – we create them in the world. In this story, I also recognize that yes, it's 1901 and yes, we understand what things were like for a lot of our communities at that time.
When you're younger you're still open enough to believe in magic, which of course exists. Those spaces exist – we create them in the world.- Cherie Dimaline
But because it is also a queer love story, I wanted to give it the space to breathe, grow and exist without oppression. I thought, how do I give them a space where they can figure out what their relationship is and who they are with some freedom? And then I thought, well, it's The Secret Garden. This is the perfect story to do that because they find and then carve out this secret space where they can live out their love story, and so it was interesting to put them together in that space.
There's something I would call the "Cherie Dimaline philosophy." It's a look at the importance of a place – of forming who we are as a community. This underlies all of your fiction and it's a big part of this book. How has that shaped you as a storyteller?
It's absolutely everything. And it's beautiful. When we talk about belonging to a place, I'm always cognizant of people who have been forcefully removed from places throughout so many different communities and histories in the world – and it's often a traumatic removal.
But I think that also is a place, the in-between spaces. It's about the memories of the old place, and the fears and anticipations of the new place and in those middle spaces, how we weave those threads together to create a new landscape of belonging. Even in the absence of original homelands, there is space. They're much more fraught and tense, but the stories are so much more vibrant because we're trying to hold onto so much.
But because it is also a queer love story, I wanted to give it the space to breathe, grow and exist without oppression.- Cherie Dimaline
I think story is the only honest tool that we have when it comes to projecting ourselves into the world. While they can be vulnerable, they are also incredibly strengthening. I've never forgotten that — the way in which landscape and belonging, even the bridges that we create between our old homes and our new homes — how that influences the language and the stories that we live honestly by.
Interview produced by Barbara Carey. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
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