Having Faith in the Polar Girls' Prison

by Cathleen With

Fifteen-year-old Trista is confined in Polar Girl's Prison with her not-quite-healthy baby, Faith. The story chronicles Trista's attempts to make sense of her life and the events that led to her incarceration, recounting how she spiralled into sexual abuse, drunkenness, poverty, and failed motherhood.

Genres: Canada, Fiction, Young Adult

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 24, 2009

About the author

Cathleen With is a Vancouver-based writer and teacher.

Her first book of short stories, "skids", was published in 2006 with Arsenal Pulp Press. Many of the stories are based on her friends’ voices, some now gone, and Cathleen's own experiences battling addictions and depression in her youth.

"Having Faith in the Polar Girls' Prison" is her first novel and was published in 2009 with Penguin Group Canada. It was inspired by her years of teaching in the North and won the 2010 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize from the BC Book Prizes.

Cathleen completed her Master’s degree in Creative Writing at UBC and has worked as a teacher in Inuvik and Seoul.

Reviews

[Mj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having Faith in Polar Girls Prison by Cathleen With was a book I chose to read because I wanted to learn more about the indigenous population in the North West Territories, especially about the lives of young people on reservations. It is a debut novel written by Cathleen With. It starts out strong and immediately engaged me in the story of a part Inuvik teenager who unfortunately ends up pregnant, in trouble with the law and spending time in a young girls’ detention centre. While she awaits the birth of her child, trial and sentencing she is fully supervised 24/7 with her independence freedoms curtailed.

I have read a number of books describing the drinking, drugs, incest, child rape, child pregnancy, poverty, lack of hope etcetera that oftentimes happen on reserves. I find them depressing and find myself wondering why such behaviour seems to be the common and inevitable result of the colonialism imposed on indigenous populations. Not having experienced such treatment myself, I could never fully comprehend this lack of hope, often bordering on despair so prevalent on reserves and was particularly distraught by the drug and alcohol abuse and the physical and sexual abuse, assault and violence taken out on females - especially close female family members (wives, girlfriends, young daughters and nieces.)

Cathleen With’s writing is different. I thought she did an excellent job of conveying not just the results but the causes of a life without hope in her descriptions of the main character Trista - a pregnant female teenager. By describing Trista’s innermost thoughts, in a format that ignores rigid timelines, but rather goes back and forth in memory and reflection in Trista’s mind and thoughts - I fully understood Trista. I got a good sense of her joy as a child, her love of her mom and nanuck (her grandmother) and of being in the great outdoors. I felt her excitement and happiness when celebrating all her various native traditions and cultures - jingle dancing, drum circles, beadwork, rug work, pow wows and community gatherings. Trista really loves her sense of larger family - her friends, her cousins, her aunties. She also experiences a rich life by visiting her ancestors and other influencers through dreams and memories. Trista is constantly in her mind reflecting while incarcerated.
I learned so much from With’s technique of describing Trista’s mind chatter and With helped me understand why Trista felt so torn by multiple abandonments and betrayals in at such a young age. Her single mom was busy working to provide and from a very young age Trista was taken advantage of by her mother’s boyfriend. He did good things for Trista also but it molestation of her was a significant betrayal. Not surprisingly, she became a very mixed up child receiving confusing signals about love and lust at such a young age. She was never provided with a good role model, foundation or understanding of what is necessary to be one half of a truly committed relationship, and no one explained that maturity is also a key component. It isn’t surprising that Trista mixed up love and sex.

I got a real sense in this book how life for adults - without their native culture to restore them and without opportunities to provide for their well-being could easily lead to escapism and to drinking, drugs and partying, ignoring children to escape….and children drinking at these parties from abandoned cups and getting raped by older drunk men. All innocence from children is taken away at a young age and their hopes and futures die early as well.

For a first novel, I thought With’s writing and insight was 3 star worthy. My criticism however is that it went on w-a-a-a-y too long. It took me forever to finish the book and sometimes it seemed that I was reading the same story repeatedly. Trista’s stay in the girl’s detention centre seemed too drawn out, with little change from day to day. I was also sometimes slightly confused as Trista floated in and out and between the current and the past, reality and dreams, awake and asleep and it wasn’t always easy to figure out. I thought this was part of With’s story telling style and was ok with this but found it to be rather lengthy at times with the balance a bit too skewed towards thoughts rather than actions. As a result, some of the book ended up being 2 star worthy.

I considered abandoning the book but did not because I was impressed with With’s insight into Trista’s head and was very interested in learning how her situation would be resolved. I knew I was in for a surprise, because With was building mood and ominousness throughout the last third of the book.
The ending made continuing worth it. With wrapped up Trista’s story with a solid and plausible ending. 2 1/2 stars. I decided to round up to 3 stars due to With’s ability to fully describe a pregnant incarcerated Indigenous teenager’s experiences in a meaningful and realistic way. The ending counteracted much of the ugliness of the circumstances, but was believable and provided some hope for change. It’s not perfect but does provides insight into the lives of indigenous children and teens on reserves for interested readers. A debut novel worth reading and 3 stars.

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part magic realism, part true-grit neo-realism, Cathleen With has constructed a clever, hard-hitting and surprisingly tender novel. All those wounded northern girls will break your heart, and then they'll beat you up.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my heart.
This book is a tender and sometimes violent exploration of the legacy of residential schools, alcohol and drug abuse, and the effects that it has had on multiple generations of people. Set against the stark and brilliant landscape of the McKenzie River Delta, With's book is a memorable and haunting tribute to the strong generations of northern girls and women who battle just to be ordinary. Just to be safe. Beautiful, memorable, and nothing like I've ever read before.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure why this book didn't get more attention when it came out. The book is told from the point of view of 15-year-old Trista, who lives in the far north, past Yellowknife, in a place called Jackfish Bay. Trista has just given birth to a daughter, and is in a juvenile facility they call "the polar girls prison".

The novel is narrated through Trista's voice and is written in a weird sentence structure that forces the reader to really pay attention. Some parts are heartbreaking to read. I think the author does a good job of detailing some of the difficulties of living in the north, and I did learn some things about artic life.

(The author was a teacher in Inuvik, which is probably where she got a lot of her material).

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's very hard for me to rate this book, because although the writing was exquisite at times, and the main character's voice had a sad poetic quality throughout, it was overall a very depressing novel. I get it. I know it speaks of some hard truths about how life is for women and girls up North, and I know that the bleak picture it paints is probably somewhat accurate, but the hope that the writer tried to infuse at the end seemed unrealistic and unearned. In a way, I suppose the story works, because I felt thoroughly sorry for the characters from the beginning to the end of the narrative.

[Sally]

For her first novel, I think Cathleen With took some risks both by writing about an otherwise never-written about far, far, far north native community plagued with abuse problems of every kind and by using a stream of consciousness style of narration. I think it really paid off, and that this was a very impressive first novel, but I definitely wouldn't recommend this book to everybody.

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Children bearing children; abused children becoming abusive adults; fantasizing about and getting blotto as a coping mechanism to deal with the unpleasant consequences of bad habits and impulsive behavior; this book takes a hard look in a non judgemental way at issues that that dont resolve themselves.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explores the beautiful Mackenzie Delta and the hard conditions facing youth in the NWT. A gorgeous book.

[Margaret]

Tough subject matter but well worth reading.Book Club material?

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

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