Moon of the Turning Leaves

Starred review from January 8, 2024
Twelve years after the power went out worldwide (in 2018’s Moon of the Crusted Snow), the Anishinaabe people of Shki-dnakiiwin (“New village”) discover problems with their homestead in Rice’s equally harrowing and hopeful sequel. Hoping to return to their ancestral home on the northern shore of Lake Huron, a party of six sets out to test whether it would be possible for the community to emigrate safely southward. Led by Evan Whitesky, the village founder, they follow in the footsteps of a similar mission, the members of which mysteriously went missing four years prior. Better armed and more cautious than their predecessors, the group navigates abandoned urban landscapes and a barren countryside hosting both friendly and hostile parties. Rice puts a refreshing, Indigenous perspective on postapocalyptic tropes, folding in both nostalgia for a world fading away (“I haven’t had a pizza in thirteen years. That’s the first thing on my list!” muses one member of the scouting party) and hope for a different future from a people who have survived similar harsh conditions in the past. The humanity and heart on offer here make this a showstopper. Agent: Denise Bukowski, Bukowski Agency.