In Search of April Raintree - Beatrice Culleton Mosionier

Cora Reimer

October 10th, 2012

Sociology 112.3

Nancy Poon

In Search Of April Raintree

"In Search Of April Raintree" is a heart wrenching Story about the author Beatrice Culleton Mosionier portraying herself as April Raintree, a strong and lionhearted metis girl struggling to grow up in a hypercritical society. The novel is based upon true events that have happened in Beatrice's life, from growing up in wretched foster homes to being raped from egotistic men. All of these events from birth to adult hood have made her indomitable and hard. It is stressed that you first understand being raised in a metis family in the 1950's automatically puts you into a frowned upon style of living, your expected to be sitting at home intoxicated everyday while social assistance is your only mean of income. The style of living the society pictures you in are foul and revolting. This stereotype happens to be right on the dot with this novel.

"In Search Of April Raintree" is not a novel I would willingly choose to read, it has a great story line that has the potential to capture the life of Beatrice as if the reader was actually she, but I feel it was inadequately written. The novel is a basic read that does not take much brainpower to understand. The author has been through so much and has lived this tragic story, which makes me feel that the novel should have more emotion in it. I wanted to feel the rage that April felt towards being metis; I wanted to feel empathy towards her. Unfortunately the novel did not bring any emotions upon me except boredom.

Novels that are classified as good reads have the reader ripping out their hair, flipping the pages faster than they can actually read because they just need to know what is going to happen next. I must admit that "In Search Of April Raintree" did have one of these moments; April was raped by some men and then left out in the middle of nowhere when they were done with her. Clearly the reader is going to be intrigued as to if she survives or if they kill her in the end, Beatrice could have used this heinous experience to put the novel over the edge, but she did not. The scene is very to the point and over with. You may be able to conclude that the scene only had me flipping pages because I was curious, not because it was written with a great deal of rage and feeling.

My copy of "In Search Of April Raintree" should have smudged ink where tears have hit the page, but they are missing. The novel has countless sorrowful events in almost every chapter. Beatrice could have taken full advantage of her readers empathy when writing about being ripped away from her family, or when her mother commits suicide, or even when her sister passes away,