DOUKHOBOR LOVERS IN A DANGEROUS TIME

For how long could he and Ruby Samarodin just drive a loop through the West Kootenay towns?”

This all makes for an exciting start to the story and encourages the reader to want to know more.

The characters in The Descendants are clearly depicted, showing the author’s compassion for each one of them. There is Virginia (Ruby’s mother), a pious stalwart of the traditional pacifist Doukhobors who only wants the best for her daughter; Sharon (Jonah’s mother), who is trying to put her painful Sons of Freedom past behind her, especially anything that involved stripping naked and burning down buildings; Sharon’s brother, Yuri, who who pays the ultimate price; Ruby, the musician, who re - turns to her Doukhobor roots in 2005 as a drug addict; Jonah, who returns from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving as a Marine and losing a limb; and Sasha, the child Ruby left behind and lied to Jonah about his parentage.

Added into this mix are added two biker gang brothers, Michael (Swanny) and Clayton, with whom scores must eventually be settled in order for everyone to move forward.

Ruby’s rock ’n’ roll music, drug, sex and alcohol scenes are explicit and painfully raw, taking the reader into the drama of her life after she ran away to pursue her musical dream.

Chursinoff also depicts the frightening scenes of Jonah’s time as a soldier in Iraq, which has left him with PTSD—where even the sound of fireworks exploding or a helicopter flying overheard instantly takes him back to being in the midst of battle and seeing his friends die.

The story swings back and forth in time between 1995 and 2005—which sometimes makes for a hard read. It might have been better written chronologically from the beginning of the story to the end. Nonetheless, it works this way too. All the pieces cleverly fit together, and questions are eventually answered—making for a powerful ending.

The Descendants also describes many similarities between the illtreatment of the children of the Sons of Freedom, brutally taken from their parents and sent to a prison-like school, with what happened to Indigenous children sent to Residential Schools. Highlighting this lesser known instance of cultural genocide makes this book valuable.

Chursinoff is more than qualified to write this story, having grown up in a Doukhobor community himself. There is a strong essence of hope in his final paragraph on the Doukhobor history when he writes:

“Today there are an estimated 120,000 Doukhobors and their descendants living primarily in Canada, the United States, Russia and the Caucasus region. Many have forgotten their roots and their culture. Yet many more are rediscovering their Doukhobor identity each and every day.”

Chursinoff, a musician who has been a drummer for Tegan and Sara, Australian pop star Ben Lee and the Be Good Tanyas, has proven that he has a talent for writing, too, with this rich and exciting novel.

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Valerie Green’s most recent book is Providence , the first title in her historical fiction, four-book series called The McBride Chronicles covering six generations of a BC family from the 1840s to present day.