Canoeing with José

“Canoeing with José is a wonderful example of storytelling that speaks to Native history and experience by engaging with our community and narratives, rather than speaking about or for us … Jon Lurie is a gifted storyteller with a perceptive awareness of place. This is a story of resiliency, adventure, and sincere friendship that reminds us to stay inspired in life, and to keep moving forward. Lurie reads the memories of the landscape and weaves these narratives back towards the present to show how reconnecting and deepening our relationships with the land can hold the power to heal.”

“Lurie and José’s mutual frustrations toward one another ultimately serve a greater purpose by heightening the emotional wallop when at last the pair manages to metaphorically paddle in sync… . Once Lurie strips away José’s hardened facade, readers are left viewing a vulnerable person whose pain is not unlike their own. Lurie, too, is at his most admirable when he lays himself bare: revealing himself as José’s stern guide, his tenacious friend, and a man continually prepared to steady them both amid the rocky waters.”

“Part nail-biting adventure narrative, part memoir, part meditation on race and heritage and class. Jon Lurie’s perilous northward river journey—accompanied by a Puerto Rican/Native American city kid who listens to hip-hop at the prow of their canoe—holds up a mirror to Mark Twain’s Huck Finn. This is a thoroughly compelling, deeply thought-provoking book—fierce, funny, and full of emotion.”

“Canoeing with José is a twenty-first-century Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s a journey of forgiveness, redemption, healing, and hope, full of breathtaking adventures and deep meditations about humanity and our connection with nature. It flows with the author’s yearning to be one with water and spirit. It takes us deep and fast through rapids of beauty, love, and awakening.”

“A poignant testament to the ongoing struggle of indigenous people today. Written with unflinching honesty, a journalist’s eye for detail, and great heart, Canoeing with José is a fascinating story of friendship, resilience, and the necessity of facing our history head on, lest we forget.”

“A superb memoir. As deeply personal as it is journalistic, teeming with tenderness and pain and humor, Canoeing with José invites the reader on an astonishing river voyage. Yes, this is a beautifully detailed story about eagle feathers and trail mix and cell phones dropped into the muck. But it is also so much more than that. Lurie has written about what it means to be human, to be fully awake to the world.”

“Canoeing with José is a re-framing of our engagement with a landscape that was only recklessly inscribed by us as ‘wilderness.’ In his young companion, José, Jon Lurie finds not only the perfect foil to his mid-life wanderings, but a voice that is as exuberant as it is discomfited by the prospect of re-experiencing what is Native to his being—and truly becoming—American.”