Split Tooth
{{Short description|2018 novel by Canadian musician Tanya Tagaq}}
{{Use Canadian English |date= April 2025}}
{{Infobox book
| name = Split Tooth
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image = Split Tooth (Tanya Tagaq).png
| caption = First edition cover
| author = Tanya Tagaq
| cover_artist =
| country = Canada
| language = English
| series =
| genre = Magic realism
| publisher = Viking Press
| release_date = September 25, 2018
| media_type = Print (Hardcover), audiobook
| pages =
| isbn = 9780143198055
| oclc = 1076787054
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}}
Split Tooth is a 2018 novel by Canadian musician Tanya Tagaq. Based in part on her own personal journals, the book tells the story of a young Inuk woman growing up in the Canadian Arctic in the 1970s.
The book has been described as a blend of fiction, memoir, poetry and Inuit folklore. Characterized by the publisher as magic realism, it has also been seen as an example of Daniel Heath Justice's critical concept of "wonderworks" or literature by Indigenous North American writers that defies conventional Western notions of literary genres.
The book won the Indigenous Voices Award for English Prose in 2019. The novel was also longlisted for the 2018 Giller Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.
Background
Split Tooth was written by Tanya Tagaq based on journal entries, poems, and short stories that she had written over the previous 20 years.{{Cite web |url=https://nowtoronto.com/culture/books/tanya-tagaq-split-tooth/ |title=Tanya Tagaq steps out onto an unfamiliar stage |publisher=Now |first=Carla |last=Gillis |date=September 12, 2018 |accessdate=December 27, 2019}} Tagaq was raised in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and attended high school in Yellowknife before finding success in Toronto performing Inuit throat singing. At 43 years old in 2018 when Split Tooth, Tagaq's first and only book was published, she had already released four studio albums and was appointed to be a Member of the Order of Canada.{{Cite news |title=Tanya Tagaq's first book 'breathes new life into old memories' |last=Carter |first= Sue |newspaper=Toronto Star |date=September 21, 2018 |url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2018/09/21/tanya-tagaqs-first-book-breathes-new-life-into-old-memories.html |accessdate= December 27, 2019}}
Summary
Through a series of alternating short prose, poems and illustrations, the Inuk narrator recollects aspects of growing up in the Nunavut tundra in the 1970s. The unnamed adolescent girl protagonist lives in a small seaside town where rape, addiction, domestic violence, and bullying are almost everyday dangers. Through her relationship with her younger sister she begins to connect spiritually to the land, eventually learning soul projection to meet with a variety of mythic and incorporeal forces. While projecting on the sea ice in an attempt to find Sedna, she instead encounters a deific set of Northern lights, who impregnate her with twins named Savik and Naja. As infants, Naja acts as a healer strengthening the life energy of those around her, while Savik instead begins to predate on people's sicknesses and immorality, killing the protagonist's alcoholic uncle and threatening her other loved ones. She attempts to kill Savik on the ice, but he shapeshifts to resist and the exertion of life energy instead drains and kills Naja. She releases Naja's body to the water, where she revives for the twins to merge into a seal and swim off. The protagonist surrenders to the elements, but instead projects through her own memories to speak with the spirits of her relatives before returning to the land of the living.
Style and themes
The book is divided by unnumbered chapters with poems and illustrations in between pieces of short prose. The prose is written with a poetic quality and moves the narratives along. The poems include one written in Inuinnaqtun, a dialect of an Inuit language. The illustrations are all full-page, black-and-white drawings by Chicano artist Jaime Hernandez. The book integrates some of the author's real life background and experiences, fiction and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. For example, the story of Sedna is related as a counterpoint to the 1970s Panarctic Oils seismic testing. The publisher categorizes the genre as magical realism, as the author noted Gabriel García Márquez as being an influence, though it also fits within the genre of Bildungsroman.{{cite news |title='This book was written for my own heart': Polaris Prize-winning musician Tanya Tagaq reveals the discomfort and struggle she endured while giving birth to her mythobiography |last=Mistry |first=Anupa |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date= September 29, 2018 |page=20}} The book has been cited as an example of the genre "wonderwork" as described by literary academic Daniel Heath Justice, being Indigenous literature that defies conventional Western notions of literary genre.{{cite web |url=https://www.popmatters.com/tagaq-split-tooth-2625762668.html |title=Fracturing to Survive in Tanya Tagaq's 'Split Tooth' |publisher=PopMatters |date=January 17, 2019 |accessdate= December 27, 2019}}
Among the themes is that of interconnectedness: "life and death, tenderness and violence, everyday existence and the spectacular spirituality inherent in nature are one and the same".{{cite journal |url=https://quillandquire.com/review/split-tooth/ |title=Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq |journal=Quill & Quire |first=Carleigh |last=Baker |date=September 2018 |accessdate=December 27, 2019}} The setting cycles through alternating the "24-hour day and perpetual night" of the high arctic. Like her last album, Retribution, the theme of rape is prevalent throughout the work: "the rape of women, of children, of traditional lands, the shame brought on Indigenous people by these assaults, by the residential school system...lost languages, grinding poverty, generational trauma."
Publication and reception
Split Tooth was published by Penguin Books imprint Viking Press and released on September 25, 2018. An excerpt was published in The Walrus and it charted for several weeks on The Globe and Mail's Canadian fiction bestseller list.{{Cite news |title=Bestsellers |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=October 4, 2018 |page=A17}}{{Cite news |title=Bestsellers |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=October 18, 2018 |page=A15}} It was awarded an Indigenous Voices Award,{{cite web |url=https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/06/05/tanya-tagaq-and-seven-other-writers-take-home-prizes-at-indigenous-voices-awards/ |title=Tanya Tagaq and seven other writers take home prizes at Indigenous Voices Awards |publisher=CityNews |date=June 5, 2019 |accessdate=December 27, 2019}} longlisted for the 2018 Giller Prize,{{cite web |url=https://www.cbc.ca/books/esi-edugyan-patrick-dewitt-tanya-tagaq-among-12-authors-longlisted-for-2018-scotiabank-giller-prize-1.4824355 |title=Esi Edugyan, Patrick deWitt, Tanya Tagaq among 12 authors longlisted for 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize |website=CBC Books |date=September 17, 2018 |first=Jane |last=van Koeverden |access-date=June 26, 2019}}{{Cite web |title=The Scotiabank Giller Prize Presents its 2018 Longlist |url=https://scotiabankgillerprize.ca/scotiabank-giller-prize-2018-longlist/ |access-date=2021-11-23 |website=Scotiabank Giller Prize |language=en-US}}{{Cite news |last=van Koeverden |first=Jane |date=September 17, 2018 |title=Esi Edugyan, Patrick deWitt, Tanya Tagaq among 12 authors longlisted for 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize |url=https://www.cbc.ca/books/esi-edugyan-patrick-dewitt-tanya-tagaq-among-12-authors-longlisted-for-2018-scotiabank-giller-prize-1.4824355 |access-date=November 23, 2021 |work=CBC}} the 2019 Sunburst Award{{cite web |url= https://www.cbc.ca/books/eden-robinson-tanya-tagaq-longlisted-for-2019-sunburst-awards-for-canadian-fantasy-writing-1.5169232 |title=Eden Robinson, Tanya Tagaq longlisted for 2019 Sunburst Awards for Canadian fantasy writing |publisher= CBC |first=Jane |last=van Koeverden |accessdate= December 27, 2019 |date=June 12, 2019}} and nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award{{Cite web |date=2019-05-23 |title=Casey Plett wins the 2019 Amazon First Novel Award |url=https://quillandquire.com/omni/casey-plett-wins-the-2019-amazon-first-novel-award/ |access-date=2021-11-23 |website=Quill and Quire |language=en}}{{cite news |url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2019/04/26/tanya-tagaq-ian-williams-among-finalists-for-60000-amazon-canada-first-novel-award.html |title=Tanya Tagaq, Ian Williams among finalists for $60,000 Amazon Canada First Novel Award |newspaper=Toronto Star |first=Deborah |last=Dundas |date=April 26, 2019 |access-date=June 26, 2019}}{{Cite news |last=Dundas |first=Deborah |date=2019-05-22 |title=Casey Plett wins $60,000 Amazon first novel prize |url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2019/05/22/casey-plett-wins-60000-amazon-first-novel-prize.html |access-date=2021-11-23 |work=The Toronto Star |language=en-CA |issn=0319-0781}} while the author was shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the book designer Jennifer Griffiths was given to the Alcuin Society Award for Excellence in Book Design in Canada.{{cite web |url=http://alcuinsociety.com/awards/2018-winners/ |title=Alcuin Society Book Design Awards: 2018 Award Winners Announced |publisher= Alcuin Society |accessdate= December 27, 2019}} At the same time, an audiobook version voiced by Tagaq was released and nominated for an Audie Award{{cite journal |url=https://quillandquire.com/omni/tanya-tagaqs-split-tooth-audiobook-up-for-audie-award/ |title=Tanya Tagaq's Split Tooth audiobook up for Audie Award |journal=Quill & Quire |first=Carter |last=Sue |date=February 7, 2019 |accessdate=December 27, 2019}}| and a version translated into French by Sophie Voillot was published by Alto, titled Croc Fendu, and longlisted for the Prix des libraires du Québec.{{cite news |url= https://www.lapresse.ca/arts/litterature/201910/12/01-5245138-croc-fendu-de-tanya-tagaq-harnacher-la-peur.php |title= Croc fendu de Tanya Tagaq : harnacher la peur |first=Natalia |last=Wysocka |newspaper= La Presse |date= October 12, 2019 |accessdate= December 27, 2019}}
The review in the Quill & Quire stated "Like a smirking teenager, Split Tooth blithely gives typical literary expectations the finger, daring us to see and experience narrative as chaotic, emotional, and deeply instinctive. And it succeeds." The review in the Winnipeg Free Press concluded that the book's "triumph" is describing a real life that "overflows with the supernatural, the unexplained, the unknown".{{cite news |title=From stage to page: In delivering her debut novel, Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq faces fear head-on |last=Williams |first=Matt |newspaper=Winnipeg Free Press |location= Winnipeg, Manitoba |date=September 29, 2018 |page=D2}} In La Presse, the reviewer wrote "Tanya, she likes the right words, the precise, the poetic." Another reviewer stated "This is definitely a work to admire for how the author has told the story and what it has to offer, rather than one to enjoy." Quill & Quire editor, Sue Carter, writing in the Toronto Star, noted that Split Tooth, along with Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves also released in 2018, shows that there is now "a broad demand for Indigenous-authored books."