I’ve read a lot of books in
49 years. As I’ve crossed many of the obvious ones off my list, I’ve made an
effort to search for stories that sound good but may have eluded me in the
past. A good number of the books have gone out of print since they were published, and
it’s difficult to find clues about their existence anymore. When I do find
mention of one of them, I sit up a bit straighter and note the title and
author, saving it for when I get the opportunity to look for it.
I first read Native American
fiction back in the early 90s, when Sherman Alexie published, to much acclaim,
his first short story collection, The
Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. I remember liking it, but I
confess that I haven’t read anything else of his since. I’ve picked up his
subsequent books and considered reading them, but either the story didn’t
resonate with me, or there was something else I had a more burning interest in
at the time.
A couple years ago, I had one
of those sit-up-straight moments when a Native writer was mentioned and I
hadn’t heard his name before. The novel sounded intriguing, so I went out and
got it. Since then, I’ve had this strong desire to devour as much Native
fiction as I could find. Apart from the odd LeCarre novel, it’s about all I’ve
been reading. I wanted to share who the authors are and what I thought of their
works.
James Welch
– His was the first book that started my somewhat obsessive focus. Winter In The Blood is the story of a
young Indian who lives on a Montana
reservation, his struggle with his identity, and the deaths of his father and
brother. The young man spends his days in a boozy haze, trying to locate an
ex-girlfriend who stole his gun, and encountering a few other sympathetic women
along the way. There’s a baleful tone throughout, and the narrator’s heartbreak
at what was lost, in terms of his culture and his people, runs just under the
surface, guiding his every move. I just learned that a film was made of the
book back in 2012. That’s one I’ll want to see.


Louise Erdrich
– At this point, maybe the best known of Native writers besides Alexie, she has
many novels to her credit. I recently read Tracks,
which concerns the story of three Anishinaable families in Minnesota and their internal conflicts, as
well as pressure from white expansion into their land. The story takes place a
century ago, and the conflicts center around a Native woman who is fiercely
independent and demonstrates shamanistic abilities, and a mixed race woman who
denies her Native legacy and enters a convent. It’s another novel that attempts
to fill in somewhat those years after the westward expansion completed, when
the Native story is conveniently omitted from history. In tone, Erdrich tends
to echo the favored style of the day, and has clearly taken cues from them,
which I think explains much of her popularity. She’s a little florid for my
taste, but this novel evoked the time and place with a haunting solemnity.
Susan Power –
I’m currently reading her first novel, The
Grass Dancer, and enjoying it immensely. Her prose style is more spare and
matter-of-fact, with apt flourishes in spots. This novel is constructed as a
series of vignettes connected by the characters. It jumps around in time, but I’m
enjoying getting the background on those who have so far been introduced. There
is a heavy spiritual aspect to the work, and one of the main characters is an
older woman who regularly manipulates men through her “spells”. As with any
book I like, I’m eager to read the rest, but not trying to read it too quickly.
Like a good friend, you want it to linger for as long as possible.
Here you have the Native
authors and their works that have made an impact on me in the last couple of
years. I plan to read more of their books, plus continue looking for new
authors to discover. After finding so many of the more well-known authors on
the bestseller lists disappointing, it’s been great to find some work that I
can truly enjoy, without the self-conscious pretention baked in to so much of the
MFA set’s prose. As a bonus, maybe these stories can help start a discussion about
acknowledging and coming to terms with the barbaric and bloody past of the
founding of this country.