“River Becomes Shadow” by Anne M. Smith-Nochasak

“We were desperate people, scrounging in a desperate world.” The three of them on the way to the destination even a better-equipped group is unlikely to reach. A tortured soul, a chronicler, and a hero. The first seems too harshly scarred by life to be more than a guide with excellent bush skills. No compassion or sympathy. The second is awkward and slows everyone down. And the latter is a reluctant hero, as these heroes usually are. Do they have the slightest chance to succeed?

“River Becomes Shadow” by Anne M. Smith-Nochasak is book two of the Taggak Journey trilogy. It is as dark and uncompromising as the first book. In book one, “River Faces North”, rebel grandmother Flo has already taught us that there is nothing heroic in living through the apocalypse. Even if you bow to the oppressors only to divert their attention from the fact that you are actually plotting a full-scale revolution. You cannot draw strength from your old bones go numb in February chill, while you amble to the outhouse, trying your hardest to keep urine from spilling. For if you fail, you’ll be declared too frail to live on your own and sent to the places where no comfort but slow death awaits. Flo could not let it happen. She had to keep hope alive. And she did.

River is twelve, and she is the one who is destined to save the world. The world that desperately needs saving. The religious cult – the Elect – rule over what is left after the bombings that destroyed the civilisation as we know it. They rule by inflicting fear and killing those who disagree with them. And since they have weapons and the remnants of technology left intact, no one can stand against them.

Yet, there is always something that makes people do seemingly reckless things, the things that will definitely get them killed. And it is hope. It isn’t necessarily a shining beacon, making one feel warm and strong inside. “Sometimes the hope sticks in our throats and presses hard and sharp while we cry, but it is still there.” In the end, that is what matters to help those who try to continue. For the hope to still be there.

Tag, the tortured soul, Andrea, the veterinarian turned an apocalypse chronicler, and River, the saviour of mankind, traverse once green, fertile, and beautiful lands of rural Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in what used to be Canada. It is all wastelands now. And toxins aren’t the gravest danger they encounter on their way. The Elect, as any self-respecting cult, has a net of spies who’d hunt and kill or hunt and bring to their masters so they could kill anyone who is declared to be ‘prey.’

You have to become a shadow to escape all the traps, and that’s what Tag, Andrea, and River turn into. They shadow run at night, unseen by anyone who can hurt them. By rebel hunters who’d kill them and take them to the Elect. By people hiding from the Elect in the wilderness, since they are ready to trade anything to save their own lives. By the oppressed, working on the farms, since they don’t want to end up in the arena and be, as Elect calls it, cast into the outer darkness – in people’s view, murdered by stoning.

They are exhausted and hungry all the time. Their bodies ache, and their skin is itchy from insect bites. Yet, in a way, they are free. “Ours was a wilderness freedom – no papers, no records. Free to hide, free to starve. To die alone, free.”

Sometimes, while reading, it felt like it would be better if they gave up. Too much struggle, too bitter the losses, and the hope nurturing them too feeble. Moreover, the people from the resistance whom they met and who were supposed to help them at different stages of their journey seemed too strange, too damaged to trust them with one’s life. How could such people, so outrageously defying the norms, help save the world? They don’t seem capable of saving themselves. And yet, another thought followed as I read on. Was there a better means to fight against utter insanity than putting forward the soldiers for whom the lines of normality are blurred beyond recognition? Besides, rebel grandmother Flo herself had said that trust was the first casualty of the revolution, but life taught Andrea that “consideration would be the second.” You simply cannot remain your trimmed self, with straight rules of behaviour and always thinking about others first, while the world is going crazy around you, but you have taken on the mission to save it.

On the outside, “River Becomes Shadow” is about an arduous journey an assorted group of individuals take to join the revolution and bring down the Elect. In its core, it is so much more than that. It is an unflinching account of human courage, resilience, and the strength of love. It doesn’t treat you gently, hinting at the atrocities people are ready to commit to gain power or to save their skin. Everything is at full display here, sharp-edged and painfully realistic, forcing you to close your eyes and draw a deep breath. And still, peeking through the disturbing scenes is hope. The subtle yet powerful matter that makes people capable of great deeds. Even those who, at first sight, appear weak or too torn by the demons of their past. Because they know what can help them win an impossible battle. “Take all the times and people you are given and appreciate them while they are there.”

Anne M. Smith-Nochasak is the author with a rare talent to make readers think about the controversies of real life while throwing them into the settings totally unlike the cosy surroundings so many of us tend to take for granted. Whether these are the lands oozing with the dystopian gloom or the northern shores of Canada seldom visited by tourists, you feel like you walk along while the characters learn their lessons.

I have been waiting to read the continuation of the story ever since I read the first book. And the moment I finished reading “River Becomes Shadow” I knew I had to reread “River Faces North.” So I did, and now, even though the earth doesn’t turn green under my feet as it is supposed to happen when River wins the revolution against the Elect, my thoughts are filled with the thoughts of Flo and others. Book characters into whom the author had managed to breathe life.