Tara Gereaux, Saskatchewan-based Métis author, scriptwriter, and story editor is known for exploring Métis identity, history, and prairie life. The book’s title was inspired by a circumstance that happened in 1869, when the lieutenant governor of the North-West Territories, at the direction of Prime Minister John A. MacDonald, travelled to Rupert’s Land to mediate prairie territory into the confederation with Louis Riel and his Métis supporters.
As stated in Gereaux’s book, Macdonald told a colleague: “I anticipate that [he] will have a good deal of trouble, and it will require considerable management to keep those wild people quiet.”
A narrative that embraces two stories and two different points in history, Wild People Quiet immerses us into a traditional Saskatchewan Métis family during the early years of the twentieth century. Florence and her brother Clancy are as close as siblings can be until a seismic shift occurs in Florence as she experiences the two-sided coin of being “accepted” as she passes as a white woman in the café and shops of her rural town and the flip-side of discrimination and inherent recriminations when she is discovered to be of Métis descent
And so, without telling a soul, Florence escapes to a small town far from home where she lives under the assumed name of Mrs. Banks, a keep-t0-herself proper and efficient secretary for an insurance company.
To keep up appearances as an upstanding white woman of the community, Florence covers her brown roots monthly with the peroxide she keeps under the bathroom sink, a ritual that she has performed every Saturday night for thirty years. Independent and industrious, Florence’s gardens are pristine, and her house is a shrine to expensive collectables. Indeed, so focused is Florence on keeping her Métis heritage private that she’s completely distanced herself from her entire family and has not spoken to them in years.
That is, until her brother arrives in town and recognizes his sister on the street. Like the cock who crows three times, Florence refuses to recognize or acknowledge Clancy. The dramatic events and fractious encounters between Florence and Clancy, and the subsequent rise and fall of the life that Florence has built, one that becomes deconstructed by the racism of the very people that defined her life — she has become everything that society expected, everything expected of a half-breed —prompts readers to engage in a myriad of thought-provoking questions, ones that create an uneasiness as to how we treat people based on who we think they are.
Wild People Quiet also makes us question our own lives and the outward masks we present to others to gain their acceptance and respect.
Colourfully alive with the beating heart of a host of characters that you either love or love to hate, Gereaux threads a series of life metaphors through the usage of the beadwork that is central to Florence’s ongoing connection with her past.
Photo credit: Chris Graham
Wild People Quiet promises to be one of Canada’s most talked about books for 2026.
Thursday May 28, at 2 p.m. the inimitable Dini Petty, the first female helicopter traffic reporter and host of the long-running The Dini Petty Show will be chatting with Cece Scott about her new show, Trailblazing Talks on The News Forum.
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CREATIVE AGING BOOKS & IDEAS AUTHOR EVENTS WINTER and SPRING 2026 – cecescott.com