Border Crossings: Thomas King's Cultural Inversions (review)

Although omas King is a major figure in contemporary Native literature, no one has devoted a book-length study to his work until (the late) Arnold Davidson, Priscilla Walton, and Jennifer Andrews published Border Crossings: omas King’s Cultural Inversions in . is volume offers a comprehensive overview of King’s work, with chapters on comic contexts; comic inversions; genre crossings; comedy, politics, and audio and visual media; humouring race and nationality; the comic dimensions of gender, race, and nation; King’s contestatory narratives; and comic intertextualities. From the preceding list of chapter titles, it is clear that the authors of Border Crossings identify the comic as the heart of King’s “cultural inversions,” that is, those counter narratives that subvert a dominant discursive field. According to Davidson, Walton, and Andrews, the comic enables King to offer “an invitation (rather than a threat) to non-Native readers—to participate in the text, and laugh with its various characters. At the same time, King uses comedy to invert and contest the presumption of White Book Reviews