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The Cast Stone
*Winner 2011 Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction
*Shortlisted for the 2011 Saskatchewan Book Award for First Peoples' Publishing
Ben Robe is a retired political science professor who has returned to his reserve at Moccasin Lake to live out his life in relative peace and solitude. But the complications of a sudden and intense US annexation of Canada change his plans. Cued into a Canadian resistance movement by his former student and lover, Monica, Ben soon learns that the layers of political and military activity go far beyond his careful social conscience in this dystopian world.
The Cast Stone accents Ben’s struggles with his own desire for independence, love, and forgiveness, but at its core it remains a telling and passionate portrait of First Nations community life, the value and safety of family, and the need for friendship. It achieves an understanding of what an individual’s responsibilities are when civil liberty, order and stability are jeopardized by an occupying power, but shows that solitary acts of defiance that champion family trust and the individual’s capacity to love are their own agents of resistance.
*Shortlisted for the 2011 Saskatchewan Book Award for First Peoples' Publishing
Ben Robe is a retired political science professor who has returned to his reserve at Moccasin Lake to live out his life in relative peace and solitude. But the complications of a sudden and intense US annexation of Canada change his plans. Cued into a Canadian resistance movement by his former student and lover, Monica, Ben soon learns that the layers of political and military activity go far beyond his careful social conscience in this dystopian world.
The Cast Stone accents Ben’s struggles with his own desire for independence, love, and forgiveness, but at its core it remains a telling and passionate portrait of First Nations community life, the value and safety of family, and the need for friendship. It achieves an understanding of what an individual’s responsibilities are when civil liberty, order and stability are jeopardized by an occupying power, but shows that solitary acts of defiance that champion family trust and the individual’s capacity to love are their own agents of resistance.
- GenresFiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2011
3 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Harold R. Johnson
15 books86 followersBorn and raised in Northern Saskatchewan, Harold Johnson has a Master of Law degree from Harvard University. He has served in the Canadian Navy, and worked in mining and logging. Johnson is the author of five novels and one work of non-fiction, which are largely set in northern Saskatchewan against a background of traditional Cree mythology. The Cast Stone (2011) won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction.
Johnson practiced law as a Crown Prosecutor in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, and balanced that with operating his family's traditional trap line using a dog team.
Johnson died in early February, 2022.
Johnson practiced law as a Crown Prosecutor in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, and balanced that with operating his family's traditional trap line using a dog team.
Johnson died in early February, 2022.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 13, 2020
This novel is so much more than it’s plot. It’s about the nature of conflict, ways of dealing with it, the importance of finding your place, community, dealing with the past and how to think about the future. One take away for me is the idea that by reacting to an opposition you are strengthening it, reinforcing that opposition and it’s views.
All that being said, it’s a fantastically entertaining book with a steady pace that never drags. The setting is Canada after it has been invaded by the U.S, although the conflict itself is not first and foremost what drives the plot (i.e. this is not a war book!) I loved the characters and feel like I want to meet them. The ending is oh so frustrating yet perfect.
All that being said, it’s a fantastically entertaining book with a steady pace that never drags. The setting is Canada after it has been invaded by the U.S, although the conflict itself is not first and foremost what drives the plot (i.e. this is not a war book!) I loved the characters and feel like I want to meet them. The ending is oh so frustrating yet perfect.
Displaying 1 of 1 review