This powerful collection of stories was the October 2022 selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Morgan Talty grew up on the reservation of the This powerful collection of stories was the October 2022 selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Morgan Talty grew up on the reservation of the Penobscot Indian Nation in Maine. He went on to college and became a writer. In other words, he survived his childhood and has told his tales.
Each story has incredible impact, depicting broken families, poverty, addiction, illness alongside the natural world as it is intricately interwoven with daily life. It is a study in how the Penobscot people have struggled to incorporate themselves into 21st century American life.
It is not all trauma and despair. With abundant humor, love and hope, the young men and women in these tales navigate their lives. Still, it is not pretty. Those of us whose ancestors came to America and live on the lands once belonging to Indigenous Peoples owe it to their descendants to learn their stories.
This Louise Erdrich's second novel. I have read many of her books and now I am filling in the ones I missed. She has generally written stories of the This Louise Erdrich's second novel. I have read many of her books and now I am filling in the ones I missed. She has generally written stories of the intertwining lives of Native Americans with the white immigrants who settled in the Upper Midwest. The Beet Queen is no exception.
In Argus, North Dakota, a 40 year saga includes two orphan siblings and their Aunt Fritzie, who runs a butcher shop. They are German/American. Celestine James and her unruly daughter Dot are Fritzie's closest friends because Celestine works for her.
The story weaves back and forth and around through the Great Depression, WWII, the introduction of beets and the increasing wealth beet sugar brings. With a sure hand, Erdrich creates incidents of terrible loss and violence balanced by laugh out loud humor.
The many characters required me to make a list but by the outrageous and surprising ending, I felt I knew them all quite well. Somehow I was left not able to put any negative judgements on any of them. How does she do that?...more
I read most of Lois Lenski's books when I was growing up but this was her debut and one I missed. It was awarded the Newbery Honor Medal in 1942. I feI read most of Lois Lenski's books when I was growing up but this was her debut and one I missed. It was awarded the Newbery Honor Medal in 1942. I feel that historical fiction written for children is a great way to teach history, as long as it is fairly accurate.
Based on a real life story, it concerns the capture of a white child by Seneca Indians when she was just 12 years old. Mary (or Molly, as her family called her) lived with her family on a farm in eastern Pennsylvania in 1758. The rest of her family was killed.
The story follows her life with the Indians. Though she carried deep sorrow from losing her family and the life she had known, she also found strengths she didn't realize she had. The natives named her Corn Tassel because of her white blonde hair.
I loved the ways Lois Lenski portrayed her learning their language and their approach to living in harmony with the earth, the plants and other creatures, as well as their methods of discipline and justice. As in all of her books, Lenski deals sensitively with Mary's conflicted emotions.
The actual Mary Jemison wrote the story of her capture by Indians, published in 1824. Lenski used that and other research to create Indian Captive. I felt she gave a fair and balanced historical account of the conflicts between the British, the French, the settlers and the natives in a way young readers could understand.
The book made a good follow up to my last book read, Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich....more
I have been a fan of Jonathan Evison since his first novel, All About Lulu, came out in 2008. I always fall for authors who have a unique and personalI have been a fan of Jonathan Evison since his first novel, All About Lulu, came out in 2008. I always fall for authors who have a unique and personal vision about life and the world.
Small World is his latest and his second big historical tome. It covers United States history from the Gold Rush onward, through the interconnected lives of Irish immigrants, Chinese railroad workers, Native Americans banished from their lands and runaway slaves.
It is a tangled yet intimate rendition of American nation building drawn down into the personal tragedies and triumphs of individual players in the tale.
At first, I was nonplussed by his writing style. It felt old-fashioned, like many of those novels I read from the mid-20th century. Then I recognized a Charles Dickens sensibility. I do not know by what alchemy Evison pulled it off but he did and landed in the 21st century.
I became so involved with his characters and so delighted with the connections he wove together. By the end I was teary eyed.
He shows how it was people who made America. The same people who are grappling today over rights, money and power; the same people who are struggling to make lives for themselves and their children.
Somehow the book does not judge but leads the reader to look at where America came from and at the dreams we've all had.
In a just world, which I doubt we'll ever have, Small World would be a huge bestseller....more
How could I not love this novel? Quintessential Louise Erdrich with a story set in and around her indie bookstore in Minneapolis (Birchbark Books), plHow could I not love this novel? Quintessential Louise Erdrich with a story set in and around her indie bookstore in Minneapolis (Birchbark Books), plumbing the depths of the Native American experience with almost perfectly balanced trauma and humor.
For all who love books, bookstores, ghost stories and the idea that love (along with knowledge) conquers all, The Sentence is a gift.
This is my second pandemic novel (the first was Burnt Coat) and I don't get the pervasive shrug/drubbing of the genre that appears sometimes in the world-weary lit press. True, we have all been living it for over two years but having a great novelist capture the essence of the experience and make some sense of it for us is another gift.
I have worked in an indie bookstore. I bought as many books as I could afford from that store during the shut-down. I picked up those books curbside and got to wave at the masked workers inside. Many of the main characters in The Sentence work at Birchbark Books and the experience is perfectly captured. Any "essential" worker could relate I am sure.
If that is not enough, Erdrich covers the George Floyd killing and subsequent protests better than any reporter, tying together the suffering of both the Black community with the Native American through years of oppression.
The Ghost? Since she is dead she must operate as a symbol, a totem, a carrier of the trauma. Just brilliant, Ms Erdrich. We almost don't deserve you but I am so grateful that we have you....more
I have been reading these poems by Native American Poet Laureate Joy Harjo over the past month. The collection is a perfect companion to her memoir, PI have been reading these poems by Native American Poet Laureate Joy Harjo over the past month. The collection is a perfect companion to her memoir, Poet Warrior.
I am a mere beginner when it comes to reading poetry. I began reading a poem a day in 2016 with Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings. I have learned that just as there are many ways to tell a story in fiction, there are many ways to write a poem. With some poems I can get pretty close to what they are about. Others confound me. I usually read poems aloud because I feel I connect better that way.
Joy Harjo's poems just went right to my heart and mind. Having read her memoir I already had the background on her life and the lives of her family and ancestors, the sad and shameful tale of the Trail of Tears, when her Muscogee ancestors were forcibly removed from their lands in Arkansas and marched to barren lands in Oklahoma, the struggles of her people to find their places in American life.
The poems, some of which are prose poems, some free verse, some influenced by Native American songs and rites, sing with truth and even hope. Not just hope for Native Americans but also for all of us that we can reconnect to the land and plants and creatures. Though all peoples of the world carry violence and war in our make up, Joy is essentially a pacifist. Thus she speaks to her own people but to all of us with her plea for living in harmony with our environment and each other.
She reminds me that it is both possible and essential that such ideas be entered into human consciousness by way of words and music and action....more
I read many memoirs. Poet Warrior was beyond special because it was written by a poet, in fact the current Poet Laureate of the United States who is aI read many memoirs. Poet Warrior was beyond special because it was written by a poet, in fact the current Poet Laureate of the United States who is also a wise and brave Native American woman.
Joy Harjo is descended from Muscogee (Creek) ancestors, the very ones who walked the infamous Trail of Tears after being banished from their lands in the South. Those people ended that journey in what is now Oklahoma but was then called Indian Territory. Joy learned her people's history from her Aunt Lois.
"Before removal, our people were walking the tightrope of history. Immigrants were flooding illegally into our homelands, staking claims to our lands and houses even as we occupied them."
She also learned this history through experiences when she was visited by her ancestors in dreaming times and given teachings that enabled her to navigate her tumultuous childhood and young adult years. She tells us these stories and shows how she became a poet warrior, working along with many others to obtain justice for her people.
Interspersed with her stories are some of her poems. I fell under her spell and was given a tale of healing, of the development of her talents, of how writing, painting and music gave her courage and wholeness and a map of the journey from oppression to freedom.
Now I am reading her latest poetry collection, An American Sunrise. Soon I will meet with my reading group to discuss both....more
This is the best book I have read so far this year. Three of my reading groups chose it so I am having the experience of discussing it with a total o This is the best book I have read so far this year. Three of my reading groups chose it so I am having the experience of discussing it with a total of 14 women. In the two discussions I have had so far, everyone loved it and a common statement is, " I didn't want the book to end." This is a testament to how much Louise Erdrich gets the reader involved with her characters.
She based her story on her grandfather, a factory night watchman and resident of the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. His fictional name is Thomas, he is a Chippewa, a man of great courage and intelligence but most of all persistence.
Thomas learns of a new "emancipation" bill on its way to Congress, a bill that will terminate the rights of his people to land "given" to them by a United States treaty that stated it was to last "for as long as the grasses grow and the rivers run." It is 1953. Should the bill pass not only will they lose their land but also their identity as Chippewa people.
Thomas spends his hours at night on the job, between regular inspections of the factory, reading the bill until he understands its words and its intentions. He then involves the people of the reservation in a bold plan to go before Congress and fight against the bill's passage.
Despite their poverty and the forces that have driven some to alcohol, have driven a daughter to run away to Minneapolis and become lost, the tribe includes characters who work against terrible odds to better their families and keep them together. One of these is 17 year old Patrice, who goes in search of her lost sister and sets in motion events that will affect the entire tribe, including a ghost!
Louise Erdrich writes with such smooth yet fiery storytelling. She shows how an oppressed people can use skills forced on them by the White man to their advantage in overcoming that oppression without losing the beliefs and understanding of their connection to their land and each other.
She gives new meaning to intelligence, compassion and courage. All the while she injects humor and a certain kind of magic trickster into this incredible tale of survival and triumph....more