Why Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing by Tomson Highway is the book that means the most to Duncan McCue
Jane van Koeverden | CBC | Posted: July 6, 2017 7:46 PM | Last Updated: July 21, 2017
July 1, 2017 marks 150 years since Confederation in Canada. CBC Books is creating the Great Canadian Reading List — a list of 150 books curated by you.
Duncan McCue, host CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup, adds Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing by Tomson Highway to our reading list.
"The Canadian book that means the most to me is Tomson Highway's Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing. When I read it in the early 1990s as a young Indigenous man, it made such a huge impact on me. It had humour. It had Cree language. It had conflict. It was drama. There was so many important issues facing the First Nations community, but Tomson Highway did it in such a beautiful and dramatic way. If you haven't read it, it's part of the Canadian canon and I hope you get a chance to."
- Tomson Highway on Austen envy and dashing leading men
- Duncan McCue on discovering his Indigenous identity as a teenager on the trapline
Duncan McCue is the host of CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup, where Canadians from coast to coast phone in to share their thoughts on the week's biggest topics. McCue is also the author of The Shoe Boy, a short memoir about his time on a Northern Quebec trapline.