Dream Wheels

By Richard Wagamese

From the acclaimed author of Keeper’n Me and For Joshua, Dream Wheels is a vital and unsparing novel from one of the most fascinating voices in Canadian writing.

Joe Willie Wolfchild is on the verge of becoming a World Champion rodeo cowboy when a legendary bull cripples him. At the same time, in the same city, Claire Hartley is brutally assaulted and her 14-year-old son, Aiden, is critically injured during a burglary. The young Ojibway-Sioux man, the black single mother and her mulatto son find their lives irrevocably changed.

Joe Willie, a rodeo cowboy since he was a child, smolders in angry silence over a deformed left arm and a limp that make it impossible for him to compete. Claire, a victim of numerous bad relationships, withdraws from men and swears a bitter celibacy. Aiden gains notoriety among his criminal peers and slips into a self-destructive spiral of drugs and violence.

Eager to find a place for her son to channel his explosive energies, Claire brings Aiden to a rodeo camp run by the Wolfchild family, where he is drawn to bull riding and proves to be a stunning natural. But Joe Willie refuses to have anything to do with the camp, remaining an aloof, mysterious presence to Claire and the boy.

Birch Wolfchild, Joe Willie’s father, sees the potential for Aiden to become a champion and for his son to heal himself, if they can move beyond anger to forge a partnership. Claire’s and Joe Willie’s wounds bring them together in a surprising romance, and beneath it all is Birch Wolfchild’s tale of the changing of the life of the Indian cowboy.

Dream Wheels is a story about change. Moving from the Wild West Shows of the late 1880s to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas to a lush valley in the mountains, it tells the story of a people’s journey, a family’s vision,
a man’s reawakening, a woman’s recovery, and a boy’s emergence to manhood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9780385673761

Richard Wagamese

Richard Wagamese, an Ojibway from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario, was one of Canada's foremost writers. His acclaimed, bestselling novels included 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 Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize, the Canada Reads People's Choice Award, and the Writers' Trust of Canada's Matt Cohen Award. Wagamese died on March 10, 2017, in Kamloops, BC.

Reviews for Dream Wheels

[jolynne-4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love his storytelling.

[alizarin_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You might be able to predict the ending from the beginning but it's so well written, that it doesn't matter. I really needed a feel good, lump in your throat, tears in your eyes kind of novel and this is it. Highly recommend.

[ceeess · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first came across this book as book fair coordinator at a Canadian Authors Association conference in Ottawa, where it had received the CAA Fiction award. Just reading the blurb on the back cover, the first two lines, was enough to make me want to read the rest of the book."The great bull was true to his name. He detonated."I found the writing compelling, the characters well-drawn, and in places rather poetic in its phrasing. I enjoyed the descriptions of life on the rodeo circuit, the conflicts of the main characters, and the "Dream Wheel" idea is fascinating as well.Five star read for me. And I never read "western novels".

[presto_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Joe Willie Wolfchild, part American Indian, son and grandson of rodeo riders, a natural rider himself from a very early age, was on the brink of world championship when a disastrous ride left him crippled, with no hope of riding again.Around the same time Aiden, fifteen years old, born of a white father he never knew and beautiful black mother desperate to find a steady man, endured his mother's men who saw him only as a way to his mother, Claire. Fitting in with neither the black nor the white youth he had the strength of character to make a way for himself, but his resentment lead him to trouble, and two years loss of freedom.As rehabilitation Aiden ends up along with his mother at Joe Willie's ranch. While Clarie immediately hits it off with the Joe Willie's parents and grandparents, there is mistrust, resentment and an air of animosity between the two young men. But Aiden proves himself to be a natural in the saddle, but can he persuade Joe Willie to train him; and will Joe Willie be able swallow his pride and let Aiden, with his knowledge of car mechaincs, help him with his own personal challenge of restoring the family's prewar truck?The story follows both Joe Wille and his family and Aiden and his mother from the beginnings of their troubles as the narrative flits between to two families. Eventually they come together and we see the slow acceptance build between Joe Willie and Aiden. The wisdom born of the tradition of the Indian heritage is a strong influence, and is especially apparent in the insight shown by Joe Willie's mother and grandmother and the calm manner of the two older men, and provides a fitting contrast to the seething rebellion and sense of loss shared, for very different reasons, by the two younger men.Dream Wheels is a thoroughly involving story peopled with beautifully drawn strong characters, an emotional ride, and a beautiful picture of the open spaces of natural America painted against the background of a proud and noble people.

[rhonna_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm not particularly good at writing reviews, but I felt this deserved one. It's such a good story. A bull rider's body and career are destroyed in competition so he goes home to his parents' ranch to heal. A young man with a very difficult home life lands himself in prison and a sympathetic cop suggests that some time at the same ranch would do him some good. The ranch and the people who live there work together to heal both men body and soul, using work, understanding, bull riding, and an old beat-up truck. This story could very easily venture into cheesiness. It sounds similar to many of the western romances I've read. But, although the book is hopeful, Wagamese shows the grit required in the process. Both men and the single mother have faced true ugliness in their lives and their story isn't always pretty. But it is a good story and the characters seemed real to me.