Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle Vol. 1

Kent Monkman, Gisele Gordon

$45

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

McClelland & Stewart Inc.
01 July 2025

Individual artists, art monographs

From global art superstar Kent Monkman and his long-time collaborator Gis le Gordon, a transformational work of true stories and imagined history that will remake readers' understanding of the land called North America-now in a beautiful paperback.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From global art superstar Kent Monkman and his long-time collaborator Gis le Gordon, a transformational work of true stories and imagined history that will remake readers' understanding of the land called North America.

For decades, the singular and provocative paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman have featured a recurring character-an alter ego of sorts, a shape-shifting, time-travelling elemental being named Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Though we have glimpsed her across the years in films and on countless canvases, it is finally time to hear her story, in her own words. And, in doing so, to hear the whole history of Turtle Island anew. The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle- A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island is a genre-demolishing work of genius, the imagined history of a legendary figure through which profound truths emerge-a deeply Cree and gloriously queer understanding of our shared world, its past, its present, and its possibilities.

Volume One, which covers the period from the creation of the universe to the confederation of Canada, follows Miss Chief as she moves through time, from a complex lived experience of Cree cosmology to the arrival of European settlers, many of whom will be familiar to students of history. An open-hearted being, she tries to live among those settlers, and guide them to a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of all beings and the world itself. As their numbers grow, though, so does conflict, and Miss Chief begins to understand that the challenges posed by the hordes of newly arrived Europeans will mean ever greater danger for her, her people, and, by extension, all of the world she cherishes.

Blending history, fiction, and memoir in bold new ways, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle are unlike anything published before. And in their power to reshape our shared understanding, they promise to change the way we see everything that lies ahead.

By: Kent Monkman, Gisele Gordon
Imprint: McClelland & Stewart Inc.
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 165mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780771022814
ISBN 10: 0771022816
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 01 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

KENT MONKMAN is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist. A member of Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba, Canada), he lives and works in Dish With One Spoon Territory (Toronto, Canada). Monkman's painting and installation works are held in public collections of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; Hirshhorn Museum; National Gallery of Canada; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; Art Gallery of Ontario; and La maison rouge, Paris. GIS LE GORDON is a settler media artist and writer based in Dish With One Spoon Territory (Toronto, Canada). Her solo work includes the feature-length documentary, The Tunguska Project (Best Feature Length Film at the Planet in Focus Film Festival, 2005), the video installations Crosscurrent (2013 Moscow Biennale), and The Land that Dreams (with Hannah Hurtzig, Luminato 2014).

Reviews for Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle Vol. 1

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER Finalist for the 2024 VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award Finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction One of Indigo's Top 100 Best Books of 2023 ""Long a persona stalking the paintings of provocative Cree artist Kent Monkman, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle steps off the canvas to tell her own story—and that of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island—in a two volume collaboration with Gisèle Gordon. Lavishly illustrated with Monkman’s paintings, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle is at once (and seamlessly) a unique story of an even more unique deity, an exposition of nêhiyaw (Cree) beliefs and a primer in nêhiyawêwin (Cree Language), and a deeply researched history of contact, colonization, and resurgence. A full-blown remediation of the politically-charged and erotic world of Monkman’s paintings, these books educate, inspire, entertain, and leave the reader breathless."" —Steve Collis, 2024 VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award judge