Brian Thomas Isaac says the follow-up to his award-winning debut novel mirrors his own life

CBC

01-06-2025

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It's the summer of 1968 and 16-year-old Lewis Toma is spending the summer with his cousins while his mom picks fruit in the United States.
It's a summer of firsts — living in a home with more modern conveniences, like a hot shower, and drinking beer and eating greasy chicken while listening to rock 'n' roll music.
This all happens two years after Lewis's brother disappeared.
That's the situation in Syilx writer Brian Thomas Isaac's new book, Bones of a Giant, the sequel to his award-winning debut novel All the Quiet Places.
Bones of a Giant mirrors his life, Isaac told CBC's Radio West host Sarah Penton.
Growing up on the Okanagan Indian Reserve, he said he and his mother and grandmother were isolated.
"There was nobody up there. Nobody. We lived in a house with basically the whole world to ourselves. It was lonely, but then we got used to it."
When he had to leave his home and go to school for the first time, he was terrified.
"It's like going to Mars to me, you know? I didn't know what to expect and it was scary."
He left school in Grade 8, because Isaac said he couldn't take the racism, and became a labourer.
At 18, Isaac left his home in B.C. for northern Alberta to work in the oil patch for two years. He returned to his community with a nice new car, but missed the money he was making up north, so left again.
When it didn't work out, he returned back to the Okanagan.
He was a bricklayer for many years before he became a writer — at age 70.
"When I was really young, I wrote a lot of poetry," Isaac said.
While working on fixing up a home he and his wife had bought, he sat down and he started writing. Before he knew it, he had the makings of a novel.
"I didn't know how to write," he said. "I read for two years the best books I could get my hands on, and it kind of came through me, you know, like osmosis and then I finished the book. I got a great editor. She was just amazing, taught me so much."
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Isaac describes his first book as "cleansing," but said Bones of a Giant was much more fun to write.
"Friday nights my wife and I would, in the old days, we'd read little short stories to each other for fun," he said. "Now, we sit around and I read my week's work and we have great laughs and discussions. She's amazing to bounce ideas off."
In his writing, his intention is to show that First Nations people are just that — people.
"We all have pains and we all have tears," Isaac said. "I really wanted people to experience what it's like to walk right beside someone, to walk them through the whole book."