As mysteries unfold, so does a loving portrait of small-town life, both on and off the reservation, but not in the way we’re...
A masterful tale that combines the wit of Sherman Alexie with the old-fashioned storytelling of Olive Ann Burns.
When Tecumseh and older cousin Lum witness a woman throwing a suitcase from a cliff into the Shield River, and then following it with herself, the small mysteries begin. The body is found, the suitcase not. Then Soldier, Tecumseh’s dog and best friend, finds a child’s skull with a hole and a red ribbon. Son of a practical mother and a dreaming, sometimes drinking, mostly scheming father, Tecumseh lives in the contemporary flux made up of the two towns of Truth and Brightwater, one in Montana and one in Canada—and one an Indian reservation—separated by the glacial Shield River. He also lives in his own flux between childhood and adulthood, and in another between his separated parents. Dad augments his living as a carpenter, with schemes no odder than the government’s—smuggling hazardous bio-waste across the border, for example—and Mom’s a beautician. During the long days of summer, Tecumseh wanders back and forth between them, Soldier nearly always at his side. Lum is his second best friend, a top-flight runner in training for the contest that will cap the annual end-of-summer Indian Days Festival. Tecumseh’s aunt, Cassie, makes one of her many returns, but this time, mysteriously, she doesn’t leave (together, she and Mom carry a multitude of secrets). Also returning is Monroe Swimmer, Famous Indian Artist, the reservation’s most notable son and once a close friend of Tecumseh’s father. Tecumseh takes a “job” with Monroe, who has bought the old Methodist church and is painting it—a magical trompe l’oeil—into oblivion.
As mysteries unfold, so does a loving portrait of small-town life, both on and off the reservation, but not in the way we’re accustomed to seeing in contemporary Native American fiction: King (Green Grass, Running Water, 1993), more interested in being human first and Indian second, accomplishes his aims without “characters” of mystic eccentricity, violent guilt, racism and self-loathing, and alcoholism being upfront and center.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-87113-818-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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