Three Day Road

War is a foreign culture to any first-time soldier. To two Cree Indians who enlist in the Canadian Army in 1915, the white man's army, Europe, and modern warfare are far more foreign than that. Elijah Whiskeyjack and Xavier Bird offer tracking and marksman skills that make them invaluable to the army, but the story here is what the army and the war do to them. Robert Ramirez's stoic Xavier Bird tells the almost unbearable story of the wreck of the young mens' lifelong friendship and indeed their lives. Ruth Ann Phimister gives soul and body to Xavier's old auntie on her long canoe journey to Hudson Bay with the wrecked one-legged, morphine-addicted soldier who comes home to her. These are great performances of a haunting book. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine