Anna, Like Thunder: A Novel

by Peggy Herring

Overview

In 1808, eighteen-year-old Anna Petrovna Bulygina is aboard the Russian ship St. Nikolai when it runs aground off on the west coast of Washington State on the Olympic Peninsula. The crew, tasked with trading for sea otter pelts and exploring the coast, are forced to the shore into Indigenous territory, where they are captured, enslaved, and then traded among three different Indigenous communities. Terrified at first, Anna soon discovers that nothing—including slavery—is what she expected. She begins to question Russian imperialist aspirations, the conduct of the crew, and her own beliefs and values as she experiences a way of life she never could have imagined.

Based on historical record, Anna, Like Thunder blends fact and fiction to explore the early days of contact between Indigenous people and Europeans off the west coast of North America and offers a fresh interpretation of history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781927366745
Publisher:	Heritage Group Distribution
Publication date:	05/15/2018
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Born in Toronto and raised on a farm near Tottenham, Ontario, Peggy Herring felt the first taps of love for the written word as a young girl when her grandfather gifted her with her first typewriter. This love led her to study journalism at Carleton Universityin Ottawa, and after graduation she embarked on a career with the CBC, which took her from the east coast of Canada to the west. After working in Nepal, London, Dhaka, and New Delhi, Peggy and her family returned to Canada, and currently reside in Victoria, BC. She is the author of This Innocent Corner (Oolichan Books, 2010), and her short fiction has been featured in a variety of publications, including The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, and Prism International. Visit her at peggyherring.ca.

Editorial Reviews

"Herring juxtaposes Russian folklore with vivid depictions of Makah, Quileute, and Hoh cultural practices and language. By doing so, she weaves together a robust account of contact." —Geist

"Through Anna’s emotional narrations and personal journey, Herring crafts a page turner that does not disappoint." —Broken Pencil

"A beautifully rendered and intimate tale of loss, discovery and redemption, Anna, Like Thunder takes readers into the heart of North American west coast Indigenous culture: the forests, beaches and ocean that embrace and sustain them. Peggy Herring writes so seamlessly that I felt like I was Russian Anna Bulygina, learning to dry salmon, following a wolf to safety, or confronting the tragic consequences of my colonial heritage on the people who've kept me alive and befriended me." —Ann Eriksson, author of The Performance

"Poetic and lyrical . . . This book is based upon historical fact, but the novel transcends the written record to provide insight into the shifting universe of human experience. Recommended." —Historical Novel Society

"Anna, Like Thunder was page turning (as well as well written), and kept me wanting to know just how the story ended." —Seattle Book Review

"Herring combines written and oral history, Russian legends, years of research, and a brilliant, heartful imagination to tell Anna’s story . . . Having consulted the Makah, Quileute and Hoh extensively on language, culture and history for this project, Herring is able to bring readers into an incredibly detailed world. And by weaving in recalled stories of Russian folklore from Anna’s mother, as well as Enlightenment science from her father, Herring makes it clear that issues of what we know, how we know it, and what our minds can be open to, are all key, not just to this story and the era of contact, but of ongoing relationship-building between peoples." —Amy Reiswig, Focus

“An intimate engagement with a little known ghost of North American history and memory.” —Jaspreet Singh, author of Helium and November

From the Publisher