Ragged Company

Name: Ragged Company
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: Richard Wagamese
ISBN: 9780385693936

Author: Richard Wagamese

Narrator: Monique Mojica, J.D. Nicholsen, Benjamin Blais, Wesley French

Unabridged: 15 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Anchor Canada

Published: 05/21/2019

Categories: Fiction, Cultural Fiction, Literary Fiction, Indigenous

Synopsis

Four chronically homeless people–Amelia One Sky, Timber, Double Dick and Digger–seek refuge in a warm movie theatre when a severe Arctic Front descends on the city. During what is supposed to be a one-time event, this temporary refuge transfixes them. They fall in love with this new world, and once the weather clears, continue their trips to the cinema. On one of these outings they meet Granite, a jaded and lonely journalist who has turned his back on writing “the same story over and over again” in favour of the escapist qualities of film, and an unlikely friendship is struck.

A found cigarette package (contents: some unsmoked cigarettes, three $20 bills, and a lottery ticket) changes the fortune of this struggling set. The ragged company discovers they have won $13.5 million, but none of them can claim the money for lack proper identification. Enlisting the help of Granite, their lives, and fortunes, become forever changed.

Ragged Company is a journey into both the future and the past, told by an accomplished full cast which includes, in order of appearance:
Monique Mojica as AMELIA ONE SKY
Benjamin Blais as DIGGER
J.D. Nicholsen as TIMBER
Douglas Hughes as GRANITE
Wesley French as DOUBLE DICK

About The Author

RICHARD WAGAMESE, an Ojibway from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario, was one of Canada's foremost writers. His acclaimed, bestselling novels included Keeper 'n Me; Indian Horse, which was a Canada Reads finalist, winner of the inaugural Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature, and made into a feature film; and Medicine Walk. He was also the author of acclaimed memoirs, including For Joshua; One Native Life; and One Story, One Song, which won the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature; as well as a collection of personal reflections, Embers, which received the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award. He won numerous awards and recognition for his writing, including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Media and Communications, the Molson Prize for the Arts, the Canada Reads People's Choice Award, and the Writers' Trust of Canada's Matt Cohen Award. Wagamese died at the age of 61, on March 10, 2017, in Kamloops, B.C. Starlight is his final work of fiction.

Reviews

Goodreads review by luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) on August 28, 2021

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | | “We become eternal by being held in memory's loving arms.” After I read Richard Wagamese's Medicine Walk, I was looking forward to reading more of his work. And Ragged Company did not disappoint. Similarly to Medicine Walk, which felt like a long conversation between......more

Goodreads review by Mj on March 21, 2020

Second Reading Just as magical and moving a read the second time around. Richard Wagamese is an amazing author and story teller. Ragged Company is an incredible story about what it means to be human (to be real and vulnerable connecting with other humans and the earth.) It is also a wonderful illustr......more

Goodreads review by Vanessa on January 02, 2022

This book will sit with me for a long time- after reading it, I would rank it as one of my top five favourite books. Where to begin? It tells the story of beautiful, complicated individuals who are often overlooked by the world around them. It is a book about the pain we carry, the friendships we sh......more

Goodreads review by Bruce on August 06, 2018

My one big problem with this book is that they only give me five stars to rate it. I consider it a seven. Double Dick, Digger, Timber and especially One For The Dead are going to live inside me for a very long time. Even Granite found a way to touch me. Rarely a book comes along that is the right bo......more

Quotes

“Wagamese writes with brutal clarity…. [and] finds alleviating balance through magical legend and poetic swells of sensate imagery.”
— The Globe and Mail

“[Ragged Company] has … melancholy tenderness and spiritual yearning. Wagamese evokes each character’s consciousness and history with compassion, deep understanding and a knowledge of street life.”
— Vancouver Sun