Three Day Road

Joseph Boyden’s first novel follows two young Cree men, Xavier and Elijah, who volunteer for the First World War and become snipers. In 1919 Niska, an Oji-Cree medicine woman, leaves her home in the bush of northern Ontario to bring Xavier back from the war, gravely wounded and addicted to morphine, and on the journey home he tells their story. Boyden drew on family stories: his grandfather and an uncle both fought in the war.