The Ballad of Danny Wolfe
Life of a Modern Outlaw
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A gripping, fast-paced account of the life of the indigenous man who founded and led the Indian Posse, one of the most dangerous gangs in North America, into violence, power, and infamy.
In 2008, Daniel Richard Wolfe was awaiting trial on two counts of first-degree murder at the Regina Correctional Centre. This wasn't his first time in jail; from his teenage years his life had been marked by stints in and out of prison – with Danny sometimes finding his own way out. This time around, he was orchestrating his boldest move yet: a carefully plotted escape that would send the RCMP on a nationwide manhunt, launching Danny Wolfe to headline-topping notoriety.
The Ballad of Danny Wolfe cinematically traces the storied years of Danny Wolfe's life, from his birth in Regina to his relationship with his mother, Susan Creeley, a First Nations woman who was forever marked by her experience in the residential school system; to his first brush with the law at the age of four and then his subsequent arrests; to the creation of the Indian Posse, the street gang he founded with a handful of equally disenfranchised indigenous friends; to the dissonance Danny felt between the traditional world he was born into and the criminal one that became his life; to the dramatic tensions over power and loyalty unfolding in the gang world and within the Posse itself.
Drawing on unprecedented access to the Wolfe family and first-hand accounts from the people closest to the gang leader, Joe Friesen's portrait of Danny Wolfe is at once riveting and timely, nuanced and provocative.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Danny Wolfe truly lived and died by the sword. In this engrossing biography, author and Globe and Mail reporter, Friesen explains how the horrific legacy of Canada's Indian Residential Schools and the rampant poverty of First Nations reserves coalesced into the life a man who had little other choice than to become an outlaw. Danny was born in Regina, Sask. in 1976. His alcoholic mother was a traumatized survivor of residential school abuse. Danny and his brother, Richard experienced a broken, violence-ridden home life from their earliest years. In 1988, they founded the Indian Posse street gang in Winnipeg. "In the gang," Friesen writes, "Richard and Danny found an acceptance they hadn't found anywhere else in their lives. School was a disaster, family life the same. With the Indian Posse, they had people who cared about them." Through 24 chronological chapters, Friesen details Danny's criminal life, from theft to murder. His story parallels the broader rise of First Nations gangs in Canada, a reckoning of sorts for generations of government-sanctioned cultural genocide and institutional racism. Friesen is a great writer who tells Danny's story with unbiased detachment. The implications of Canadian social policy as reflected in this outlaw's life should be clear to all readers. Highly recommended.
