Native American – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.24 NORTHWEST ANGLE by William Kent Krueger /2011/northwest-angle-by-william-kent-krueger/ Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:55:17 +0000 /?p=21278 Book Quote:

“Later, when it no longer mattered, they learned that the horror that had come from the sky had a name: derecho.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale  (OCT 2, 2011)

In Northwest Angle, William Kent Krueger’s 11th book in the award winning Cork O’Connor series, Cork and his family vacation in September on a houseboat in Canada, near the Northwest Angle area of Minnesota. Cork had hoped that his family, including his three children, Jenny, Annie and Steve and his sister-in-law Rose and her husband Mel, could finally get some time to relax and enjoy each other. They had all suffered the loss of Cork’s wife two year’s prior and they had not yet found any time to spend together especially since his kids had become older and living on their own.

Unfortunately for Cork and his family, the vacation becomes anything but enjoyable when soon after arrival, Cork and his older daughter Jenny become trapped in a major quick forming and very dangerous derecho storm that shipwrecks them on one of the many islands in the area.

During the storm, Jenny at first becomes separated from her father when he is tossed off their small boat before she is able to steer the boat to a nearby island. She seeks shelter at a small cabin in what appears to be the only building on the small island. She uncovers a baby that has been placed in safety from the storm and shortly thereafter finds the apparent mother of the baby dead. Although at first she thinks the woman was killed by the storm, she soon realizes that the woman was actually murdered and, given how hungry the baby is, she realizes the baby was more likely hidden from the murderer than from the storm. Fortunately, soon thereafter, she finds her father but they both become concerned when they see a man with a gun that they fear may be the killer of the baby’s mother.

Cork and Jenny manage to avoid the man with the gun and eventually reunite with the rest of their family and go to Northwest Angle to report the murder of the woman in the cabin. There they meet with people eager to help especially against who they believe is the murderer Noah Smalldog, the brother of the murdered girl, Lily Smalldog. However, the longer Cork and the others stay in the area, the more confused they become about who is really helping and what is really going on.

As usual for a William Kent Krueger book, I really enjoyed this book that starts and ends as a thriller and is more of a traditional mystery in the middle. He does a great job in presenting believable and likeable main characters while providing an interesting and realistic story. To me, the mix of the thriller and mystery was interesting but led to some dragging in the middle of the book, especially after such a quick reading beginning during the storm and finding of the baby. Nonetheless, this is a very enjoyable and well recommended book that adds to an already great series.

Although it would be helpful to have read prior books in the series to understand all of the back story and relationships among the various characters it is not necessary. Krueger does a good job in the beginning in providing the key back story without boring his faithful readers (some of which are like me and appreciate the reminders anyway).

I was not very familiar with William Kent Krueger until I went to Bouchercon in 2008 where I found he had a significant presence and following. He was also a very interesting and entertaining speaker so I picked up a copy of his Anthony-nominated Thunder Bay while there and later picked up a couple of his prior books so as to start at the beginning of the series. I finally started reading the series in January, 2010 starting with Iron Lake, the first book in the series, which became one of my favorites in 2010. I’ve now read the first six and last two and I’m looking forward to going to back to read the three I’ve missed.

As soon as I started reading these books, they reminded me of the Alex McKnight series by Steve Hamilton. Both books take place in the United States just below the Canadian border, with Hamilton’s books based in Michigan and Krueger’s books in Minnesota. Both have a strong American Indian influence to their stories with significant Indian characters and reservations key to the story. Both of the main characters were policeman in major cities prior to moving to their current more remote locations, with Cork having spent a short time in Chicago and Alex in Detroit. Of course, several key differences exist, the most significant of which is the key part of family that is important to Cork as he is married with children in most of the books while Alex has no immediate family. Nonetheless, if you’ve enjoyed only one of these writes, I know you’ll like the other.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 92 readers
PUBLISHER: Atria Books; First Edition (August 30, 2011)
REVIEWER: Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: William Kent Krueger
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Cork O’Connor Series:

]]> HELL IS EMPTY by Craig Johnson /2011/hell-is-empty-by-craig-johnson/ Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:50:31 +0000 /?p=18887 Book Quote:

“The snow was already creating ridges around me, the high points of my profile forming sculpted edges, but it seemed different, as if the snow was not only changing colors but texture, too. Sand; it was like sand, and as I watched, the wind began to winnow the dunes — and then me along with them. First the shoulder that I’d damaged in Vietnam folded into itself and blew away, my ear, then a leg, a hand, quickly followed by a wrist, a foot. It was all very strange, as if I were watching myself disintegrate into the wind.”

Book Review:

Review by Kirstin Merrihew  (JUN 30, 2011)

William Walk Sacred describes the Native American vision quest experience as a time when, “You are presenting yourself before the Great Spirit and saying, ‘Here I am. I am pitiful. I am naked.” “You’re down to the nitty gritty of who you are.” He adds, “You cannot go off the path at that point because you are now owned by the spirits. They watch you continuously. There is no hiding.” This quest to gain spiritual insights and to, in effect, travel to God, can be compared to the allegorical journey taken in Dante’s The Divine Comedy in which a soul moves through hell, purgatory, and heaven. Of course, hell (Inferno) is the most gripping. The ninth circle of Dante’s hell holds those guilty of treachery in an icy prison, with Satan encased waist-high in the center. How fitting then that Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming should find himself in a mountain snow storm with a beat-up copy of Dante’s Inferno, battling the elements, violent men, his own limits of endurance, and mysteries of the mind and spirit — in effect, undergoing his own involuntary vision quest.

Walt begins this arduous journey sitting in a restaurant with four convicts he and Deputy Saizarbitoria (the Basquo) intend to deliver to the feds. Three of the cons are confirmed murderers already, and some black humor serves as table talk as the lawmen keep count of how many times Marcel Popp threatens to kill them. Tension crackles even this early as one wonders whether there will be an escape attempt before they even finish their meal. The suspense builds about when it will happen (the escape) because of course it must for the novel to proceed, yet the reader is still surprised when and how it occurs.

Searching for these desperate escapees who have taken hostages with them onto higher ground, Walt has a head start on other law enforcement and refuses to slow down to let them catch up, fearing that to do so could cost more innocent lives than have already been taken. As he doggedly tracks the men and is able to somewhat winnow down the human odds against him, he faces other (weather-driven) obstacles. He finds himself pinned under a snow vehicle at one point. A ferocious wildfire bears down on him at another. Exhaustion and injuries test the sheriff to the max, and he isn’t sure he is going to survive this search for the most dangerous of the convicts: Shade (yes, Inferno reveals its shades too…). Fortunately, Virgil, a seven-foot Native American who wears a bear skin complete with head, comes to Walt’s aid, providing him with shelter and challenging him to a makeshift game of chess while waiting for the dead of night to pass. Virgil is more than a passing character though. Walt isn’t sure how to tell him that one of Shade’s murders is both the spur for this escape from custody and directly connected to Virgil. During one of the sheriff’s direst intervals, Walt implores Virgil, “…I’m not going to make it — and I need to tell you something.”

Shade is a man driven by his past and the commands of the disembodied. Voices (spirits?) speak to Shade and early on at the restaurant, he tells Walt: “I didn’t have to go to the bathroom but wanted to speak to you alone about the snow and the voices.” He believes the lawman may experience the spirits too and doesn’t want to be the only one who goes through a private, hellish spiritual quest. Indeed, Walt and Virgil seem to flicker in and out of “normal” existence as they unrelentingly tramp on in pursuit of Shade, trading dialogue on their uncertainty about where the line is between life and death. One says to the other, “Well, whichever one of us is dead, we’d better get going. I’d hate to think that the Old Ones went to all the trouble of bringing us back and that we couldn’t get the job done.” Getting the job done will only be possible if Walt can brave everything in his path and hold true to himself when his mind is stripped naked before nature and Reality.

Hell is Empty is described by author Craig Johnson as “the most challenging novel I’ve attempted so far and, like Dante, I would’ve found it difficult to make such an effort without my own guides into the nether regions.” Although this is the seventh Walt Longmire novel, I’ve only had the opportunity to read one other:  Junkyard Dogs, the book published before this one. So, I cannot gauge whether Hell outshines all predecessors. I did think it was the superior read in relation to Dogs. However, the two novels arguably satisfy different literary appetites. While this novel is a meaty existential thriller about a man down to the barest threads of his own consciousness, Dogs is a tale of a group of misfits whose walk on the wrong side of the law causes them to come to bad ends. There is a sense of justice by mishap imposed on dumb but not so malicious meddling. However, intentional criminality creeps in as the catalyst for what goes down. Although this is primarily a review of Hell, I’d like to go into a little detail about Dogs:

The opening has Walt investigating an improbable “accident” revolving around a young woman, Gina Steward, who drove off from home in her car. A car to which her husband, Duane, had tied an old man for “safety” while the old guy was working on the family roof. Naturally, the senior citizen, the “Grampus” of the Stewart clan, went for an unexpected open-air ride, and it was a while before Gina, who didn’t notice her bouncing baggage, could be stopped. Fortunately, Grampus Geo Stewart survived this rough road excursion.

The Stewarts run a junkyard, complete with menacing junkyard dogs, adjacent to a relatively new development of expensive homes, and Ozzie Dobbs Jr. frets about what that does to his inherited investment in the development. On the other hand, Ozzie’s mother and Geo are a cozy, if clandestine, couple (ala Hatfields and McCoys or Romeo and Juliet, take your pick). Pretty soon Walt and his loyal department have two suspicious deaths on their hands and have to tease out the clues. Will Walt and his people find that that the junkyard guard dogs’ ferocity can’t match that of their human masters? Or are the people more victims of society or circumstance than anything else? No especially big revelations about human nature rise to the top, but the plot moves quickly and ends cleverly. It’s a sharp, sometimes laugh-out-loud mystery honing a dark edge to a group of seeming bumblers. It’s tone and subject matter stride along most entertainingly. However its tale is, as mentioned, less weighty than that of Hell is Empty.

Walt Longmire reminds me of Walt Fleming, the Idaho sheriff who stars in a series by Ridley Pierson. Then too, bookshelves abound with crime series in scenic, untamed geographic locations with a main hero, a beloved crew of trusty sidekicks, and, usually, a love interest who is somehow connected to law enforcement too. Craig Johnson is obviously practiced at delivering plots that make putting down the book very undesirable. His protagonist is someone a reader can feel good to be around — which adds a reading comfort level since the stories are told in the first person. Even though they are part of a busy niche, the Walt Longmire mysteries belong toward the front of the queue.

Hell is Empty is Craig Johnson’s effort to stretch his writing abilities. No slouch before, he has done an admirable job. His taut mixture of action and character development is nearly flawless, and his literary dollops enrich the novel. Man versus mountain, man versus man, man versus mind, man versus The Beyond. What could be better?

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 53 readers
PUBLISHER: Viking Adult (June 2, 2011)
REVIEWER: Kirstin Merrihew
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Craig Johnson
EXTRAS:

 
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Walt Longmire novels:

]]> EXTRA INDIANS by Eric Gansworth /2011/extra-indians-by-eric-gansworth/ Tue, 01 Feb 2011 02:25:34 +0000 /?p=15842 Book Quote:

“People are always wishing on falling stars…they speed-wish, going as fast as they can, the lines they have rehearsed all day, maybe wishes they’ve written on the steam in the bathroom mirror after their morning showers or on napkins at lunch, ink bleeding their desires away into accidental coffee spills, but still they do it, and try to get it before the star burns dead away and cancels their dreams on account of their too-slow brains.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (JAN 31, 2011)

Extra Indians, the latest tour de force from Eric Gansworth, is a rollicking, engrossing, and big-hearted novel that defies expectations at every hair-raising turn.

Tommy Jack McMorsey – a West Texas flatlands native, Vietnam vet, flawed husband and father, and long haul driver – travels from Texas to northern Minnesota annually to watch the meteor showers and wish upon the stars. But on one cold night, he chances upon a deluded Japanese tourist who is searching for the buried ransom money from the Coen brothers’ movie Fargo. When she wanders off and dies of exposure, McMorsey finds himself thrust into the spotlight of an intrusive media campaign, dredging up ghosts from his past.

One of these “ghosts” is Fred Howkowski, an Indian man whose life he saved once in Vietnam. But once was the charm; McMorsey can’t save his best friend again when Howkowski drifts to another kind of “shoot,” pursuing a Hollywood speaking role as an “extra Indian.” To complicate matters, upon arriving stateside, Howkowski entrusted McMorsey to raise his son – T.J. – who is tormented about why he was given up in the first place. And then there’s art history professor Annie Boans, the love child of McMorsey and Shirley, the woman he was romantically entangled with and whom he has never forgotten.

The eventual meeting between Tommy Jack and his two children – the adopted son he raised, the daughter he never knew about – is just the foundation of a story that digs deep to explore powerful themes: how the past continues to haunt and inform the present. How images and stereotypes intersect with reality in Native America. How what is thought and what is spoken are often disjointed. How there is really no such thing as a “single truth,” no matter how hard you search.

And search they do. Gansworth – a natural born storyteller who breathes life and complexity into his cast of characters – has a lot to say about how we pursue “the truth” in an era of reality T.V.; a crew for a reality-based T.V. show that specializes in unsolved mysteries shows up at his door with its own agenda, with predictably terrible results. He delves into “the truth” of Hollywood, where, according to Howkowski, “they cover me in this orange dye to make me darker for the screen, and it looks like blood every night when I try to wash it down the bathtub drain.”

But most harrowing and heartbreaking of all is “the truth” of Vietnam – the resonance of that misguided war and the inescapability of one’s actions. Eric Gansworth saves two of the most haunting memories for last; one can thoroughly understand how anyone who experienced these horrors can never be “whole” again.

Gansworth suggests that the truth is complex and that knowledge isn’t power nor is it liberating. McMorsey ponders, “How do you tell these secret parts of your life…” They’re not secret because you need them to be, but secret because they are the moments you share with one other person, and here on, the camera everything about you is at least once removed. Their machine keeps rolling magnetic tape from one spool to another, copying your image over and over again, but they never get it right. No matter how closely they try to document your moves, they only get one angle…”

It is, in the end, impossible to read this book from a one-angle perspective. A road trip detours into something more mysterious, which, in turn, opens up questions about Vietnam and the past, the endurance of love, the search for identity, and the secrets we keep and reveal. There is no closure, only progress. In other words, this book is about life itself.

It helps to know that Eric Gansworth is a First Nations Author, a member of the Onondaga Nation. The character of Fred Howkowski appeared in The Ballad of Plastic Fred and Indian Summer. According to an afterword by the author, he “began to understand that the story of Fred Howkowski was not over yet. He kept showing up, a ghost wandering at the fringes of my other work.” He is finally – and expertly – laid to rest.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 7 readers
PUBLISHER: Milkweed Editions (November 1, 2010)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Eric Gansworth

NativeWiki on Eric Gansworth
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Other Native American authors:

Louise Erdrich

Sherman Alexie

Bibliography:

Poetry:

]]> THE GHOST OF MILAGRO CREEK by Melanie Sumner /2010/the-ghost-of-milagro-creek-by-melanie-sumner/ Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:28:50 +0000 /?p=10449 Book Quote:

“Ten minutes later, when Mister regained consciousness on the bank of the river, he learned that Tomas had dived in with a knife in his mouth and cut the sandal free from an entanglement of fishing line. For the most part it was all a blur, but sometimes he thought he remembered rising to the surface in Tomas’s grip – the slam of their hearts against each other and the keening sorrow of love.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill Shtulman (JUL 6, 2010)

Every now and then, a “stealth book” comes along – one that surprises you, captures you in its grip, and doesn’t let go until you turn the last page.

The Ghost of Milagro Creek is such a book.

I expected this book to be something else entirely – a light mystery about two blood brothers who vied for the same gringo girl in the Cain-and-Abel tradition. In reality, the book is lyrical, poignant, and from time to time, electrifying. It depicts the life of the Taos barrio colorfully and – in my mind – authentically.

Milagro Creek is the story of Ignancia Vigil Romero, a Jicarilla (basket weaver) Apache and a curandera (medicine woman, or some might say, witch) and the two sons she raises to adulthood: Mister and Tomas. It is filled with secondary characters who jump off the pages – Raquel O’Brien, the gringo short-story writer, Chief, a bipolar man who establishes a local sweat house, the very fallible priest Manny Petit and a host of others.

The immersion into Taos life is described at one point by Petit’s Right Reverend: “At first, it will jump right out at you – sun gods, saints dressed up like dolls, peyote buttons, nudity. Then you get used to it. You want to be politically correct and all that. Okay, then. After a while, you start to see it how they see it. When that happens, it’s time to leave.”

As readers, we enter this mystical world. We are present for susto—the live burial of the child Mister until “the bud of (his) soul began to swell…pushing outward with mysterious force.” We hear the tales that are the framework for the Jicarilla Apache life. We see the rivalry of the blood brothers becoming more and more potent. And we get into the rhythm of the natural world and all its mysteries and glories.

The denouement is played out in all sorts of ways – through police reports, witness statements, case worker interviews, short-story snippets written by Raquel (Rocky), and a pilgrimage to Chimayo – an actual event that takes place in New Mexico. This is not a linear book; it bounces back and forth in time, switches narrators (a big part is narrated by Ignacia, who is already dead of ALS at the books onset), and saunters back to ancient tales as it bobs and weaves it way to the conclusion. The mystical Taos landscape is every bit as much of a “character” as the humans; as Ignacia says to Mister, “Rock, sky woman…this is your mother.”

Melanie Sumner has created an authentic and heartbreaking book that will stay with me. I urge you to discover it for yourself.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 12 readers
PUBLISHER: A Shannon Ravenel Book; 1 edition (July 6, 2010)
REVIEWER: Jill Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Melanie SumnerWikipedia page on Melanie Sumner
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another good a Native American read:

Bibliography:

]]> WAR DANCES by Sherman Alexie /2010/war-dances-by-sherman-alexie/ Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:00:35 +0000 /?p=7968 Book Quote:

“She’s gone. She’s gone.” Paul sang the chorus of that Hall & Oates song. He sang without irony, for he was a twenty-first-century American who’d been taught to mourn his small and large losses by singing Top 40 hits.

Book Review:

Review by Debbie Lee Wesslemann (FEB 25, 2010)

War Dances, Sherman Alexie’s collage of short stories and narrative and prose poems, covers familiar Alexie territory: the melancholy comedy of ordinary lives, where irony and coincidence strike like rattlesnakes, swiftly and unexpectedly. His characters, often but not always of Native American descent, grapple with a changing culture and their place in it. They journey toward the ideal but end up, more or less, in a place no better than where they began. And although the sons pay for the sins of their fathers, the fathers suffer, too. Redemption comes when least expected, and the best intentions sour. Alexie is both cynic and comedian, toying with his characters and their impossible circumstances, rarely willing to bestow upon them the good fortune of an unequivocal happy ending.

In “The Senator’s Son,” the narrator commits an impulsive hate crime that leaves him questioning his moral fiber: on a dark street, outside a bar, he and his friends attack some gay men, one of whom turns out to be the narrator’s best friend from childhood, Jeremy. But the narrator is less worried about his friend than about what he may have done to his father, a senator with presidential aspirations: “The real question is this: Why the hell would I risk my reputation and future and my father’s political career – the entire meaning of his life – for a street fight – for a gay bashing? I don’t know, but it was high comedy.” The narrator’s remorse is rooted in the knowledge that he cannot compete with his father’s “predictable moral code,” even though his father’s actions and political beliefs may be the germs at the heart of the crime. But nothing that night ends up as the narrator expects, with both his father and Jeremy act on the strange nuances of their convictions.

In the wry, often hilarious, “The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless,” the protagonist, Paul, is a vintage clothing dealer who travels throughout the country in search of acquisitions. He is a man who lives – and wears – cultural history, from old films and jazz to pop hits and eBay. At O’Hare, he sees a beautiful woman wearing “a pair of glorious red shoes. Pumas. Paul knew those shoes. He’d seen them in an ad in a fashion magazine, or maybe on an Internet site, and fallen in love with them . . . Who knew that Paul would someday see those shoes on a woman’s feet and feel compelled to pursue her?” And so he races after the woman with a pop soundtrack playing in his head – or rather, on his iPod – and wearing a suit Gene Kelly once owned. When he finally corners her just outside the security exit, they share a brief, witty conversation, leaving him to marvel “at the gifts of strangers, at the way in which a five-minute relationship can be as gratifying and complete (and sexless!) as a thirteen-year marriage.” Because this is an Alexie story and not the law of averages, Paul runs into the woman again, in a different airport. She becomes a metaphor for his own crumbling marriage, his increasing loneliness, and, eventually, his downfall.

Alexie is best when he crafts longer short fiction, stories like the two mentioned above and the poignant “Breaking and Entering” where a man defends his home and ends up as the poster boy for racism. The more experimental but equally effective “War Dances” delivers a series of vignettes and witty observations as it tells the story of a man who goes suddenly deaf in one ear when his wife is out of the country, in Italy. He faces the possibility of his own mortality through remembering his father. However, despite Alexie’s skill with longer forms, certain shorter works stand out as well, and in these Alexie seems conscious of the connection between poetry and prose, as he titles one particularly successful piece “Roman Catholic Haiku.” A short piece written in a similar vein, “Catechism,” uses the format of questions and answers to reveal faith of a different kind, but is less successful. In the last, the prose has Haiku-like beauty without the resonance.

Likewise, the poetry is uneven. The wonderful “Ode to Mix Tapes” mourns the loss of tradition to new and easier technology in a world of point-and-click: “A great mix tape/Was sculpture designed to seduce/And let the hounds loose./A great mix tape was a three-chord parade/Led by the first song, something bold and brave . . . .” But the opening poem, “The Limited,” is slight and heavy-handed. The lines in his poetry are often quotable, succinct messages and images. In “Ode to Small-Town Sweethearts,” the teenage narrator braves a storm “for a girl” and ends up among friends, thinking “Mortals have always fought the gods/And drives epic storms for love and/or lust,/So don’t be afraid to speak honestly.”

Because of the unevenness and the mix of poetry and prose, War Dances often feels thin, without much between the covers; however, when the stories work, they evoke the pleasures of the author’s award-winning short story, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” and for those moments, this volume is well-worth the read.

Editor’s Note: War Dances is the winner of the  2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 26 readers
PUBLISHER: Grove Press; First Edition edition (October 6, 2009)
REVIEWER: Debbie Lee Wesselmann
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Sherman Alexie
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Native American fiction:

Partial Bibliography (excludes poetry books):

Related:

]]> IN THE COURTS OF THE SUN by Brian D’Amato /2009/in-the-courts-of-the-sun-by-brian-damato/ Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:24:38 +0000 /?p=6776 Book Quote:

“ In this world, your clothes were your passport, and a gang of javelinmen helped steer us through the plebes. Members only, I thought. We edged past knots of people. By now I could pick out clans and nationalities by their clothes and body mods, and, as a bonus, Chacal’s set of mainly disdainful status associations kicked in automatically: For instance, the orange sort of saris those short, dusty people were wearing meant they were Cacaxtlans, and over there, those tall wiry domeheads with—damn, I’m using derogatories, which was good manners here but bad, bad bad in Century 21—those wiry individuals with the precancerous sun-cracked skin were Chanacu, proto-Mixtecs, from the mountains around Zempoaltépetl. The roped together gang of tall ectomorphs with the fresh scabs and penitential sandbags tied to their ankles weren’t slaves but Yaxacans, people from the far northwest of the valley, expiating a black debt. That line of tiny, pale, furtive nearly naked characters with the big lip plugs and clay-caked bowl cuts had come from the far, far south, maybe even from Costa Rica, and sold little frogs and insects made of hammered gold, which was still a huge novelty in these parts. ”

Book Review:

Review by Ann Wilkes (DEC 12, 2009)

The world-building in this speculative fiction novel set on Earth is staggering. Over half the book takes place in Guatemala and Central Mexico at the height of the Mayan empire. The detail D’Amato puts into the pageantry, customs, sights, sounds, smells and tastes truly transport the reader to a seemingly alien world. The story is told by a Mayan descendent with his share of neuroses, gifts and curses. The first person, conversational narration was fresh and often humorous.

In 2012, a multi-national conglomerate, the Warren Group, sends a copy of Jed’s consciousness back to 664 AD to learn how to play the Mayan Sacrifice Game with nine stones or runners which would give them much more information than his three-stone game. D’Amato describes the Game as a Parchessi-like, more complex than chess or go, with number crunching and intuition. In the right hands, it is capable of prognostication with frightening accuracy. When Jed goes back in time, the game takes on a more fantastical aspect that is hard to follow.

The Warren Group has a Mayan Codex from the seventh century AD that predicts what may be global, catastrophic events in 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar. Foreknowledge may help the company, and whatever world leaders they choose to include, to prevent global terrorist attacks. A devastating attack at Disneyworld turns things desperate.

“On CNN they were saying that the Disney World Horror—as they were apparently now calling it—was officially a Mass Casualty Incident. Like, glad they got that straight. Drudge’s links were saying that judging from medical radio reports the death cloud, whatever it was, hadn’t been just in the Magic Kingdom but had affected an area extending south to Lake Tohopekaliga and west at least as far as downtown Orlando, with a long plume angling northwest at least to Lake Harris. Symptom clusters had been reported a lot farther out than that, but since people had moved around in the day or so since their exposure, it wasn’t clear exactly how far the cloud had carried.”

The book begins with Jed2 (Jed’s duplicate consciousness) finding himself in AD 664 as planned, but in the wrong body. Instead of being in the head of a Mayan king, he’s in the body of a man about to sacrifice himself. Jed2 struggles to stop the still aware man he’s inhabiting from throwing himself down the pyramid’s jagged stairs created for just that purpose.

Between his pessimistic, irreverent inner dialog and his immediate plight, I was hooked. The irreverence did get a bit extreme at times, causing me to skim ahead. The action and descriptions are compelling, but often graphically violent. I rooted for the underdog protagonist throughout. The ending made me angry, but at least I wasn’t indifferent. D’Amato did succeed in stirring my emotions.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 39 readers
PUBLISHER: NAL Trade (November 3, 2009)
REVIEWER: Ann Wilkes
AMAZON PAGE: In the Courts of the Sun
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Brian D’Amato
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More that you might like:

The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks

Empire of Humiliation by James Jens Broussea

Turing’s Delirium by Edmundo Paz Soldan

Bibliography:

Sacrifice Game Trilogy:

]]> GIRL WITH SKIRT OF STARS by Jennifer Kitchell /2009/girl-with-skirt-of-stars-by-jennifer-kitchell/ Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:23:38 +0000 /?p=6489 Book Quote:

“Yes, there was a message written in this man’s death, and it included the hood of her Dodge. Something logical to the murderer. Something obviously about Ma’ii, the Coyote. …Maybe Trybek had the coyote parts that played into the murder. But she had the two coyotes that had been mutilated. The murderer had something symbolic to tell her.”

Book Review:

Review by Katherine Petersen (NOV 25, 2009)

On her way to work, Lilli Chischilly finds two dead coyotes on the hood of her truck. She knows it’s a message but hasn’t figured out who, what or why. Lilli buried the coyotes, but that’s just the first piece of a mystery that grows in size and complexity every time she turns around. A murdered Navajo man found in the Badlands with coyote reproductive parts shoved down his throat; a series of photographs of a girl taken by her friend from long ago, Jerome Bah; political favors wanted from the presidential front runner; and another man who wants to kill the candidate to revenge a family wrong from the past. Somehow they all connect.

Lilli grew up on the Navajo reservation, attended college and law school among the whites and has come back to put her legal skills to work for the reservation’s Historic Preservation Department. She has a strategic position that straddles both worlds and makes her crucial to the plans of people who might not have her best interests at heart. Jerome, the boy who was forever at her side as a boy, has returned from L.A. to the reservation after losing a wife and child, hoping to begin their relationship again. A photographer who speaks in pictures, Jerome has a message to convey to her through a series he took of a girl. And he wants a response. Then Lilli’s boss assigns her to take a water-rafting trip down the Colorado River with Mr. Lee, the front runner in the presidential race. Billed as time to spend with his family and learn about the Navajo people, Lilli knows he wants something from her as the Navajo’s representative, but she doesn’t know what.

Jennifer Kitchell delivers a beautifully written, lyrical and deftly plotted mystery in Girl with Skirt of Stars. Her intimate knowledge of the Navajo make it easy for her to bring this world of “walking in beauty” to life for her readers. It also gives her intimate knowledge and ability to fully develop Lilli’s character as one who understands two cultures: how they mix and how they collide. Navajos emphasize balance: good and evil, light and dark, right and wrong. Lilli also must confront a difference between white and Navajo justice, and for Navajos, sometimes two wrongs might make a right.

Kitchell combines political agendas, revenge, mysticism and murder to create a story that twists and turns, giving the reader small glimpses as the pages turn. Kitchell has a natural talent for storytelling, so doesn’t need to rely on action scenes to propel her plot. Instead, she spends time interweaving action with in-depth character development, illustrations of Navajo custom and belief with flowing prose and descriptive scenes where you can almost feel the canyon walls at the narrowest point of the Colorado River and distinguish different bird calls and blossom colors. She also possesses a deep understanding of human nature–at its best and at its worst—showing us individuals who will do anything to right a long-ago wrong or to win her approval and one man who ignores advice in his attempts to help her. Lilli struggles to understand the people and mystery around her, piecing together motives and information she gleans along the way in her attempt to determine the truth and keep her people safe. Kitchell intertwines Navajo lore, rituals and customs into the story in a way that adds credibility and knowledge without taking away from the plot. I recommend this book to all mystery fans but especially those who enjoy Native American mysteries. Girl with Skirt of Stars has a more literary feel than the mysteries of Tony Hillerman and Aimee and David Thurlo, but I think fans of these authors will find Kitchell’s novel as rich and enjoyable as I did.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 10 readers
PUBLISHER: Pronghorn Press; first limited edition, edition (August 1, 2009)
REVIEWER: Katherine Petersen
AMAZON PAGE: Girl with Skirt of Stars
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Jennifer Kitchell
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Navajo Mysteries:

Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman

Death Walker by Aimee & David Thurlo

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More fiction about Mountain Meadows Massacre:
Redeye: A Western by Clyde Edgerton

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More Native American fiction:

The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich and her previous novels

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power

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Nonfiction:

Selling Your Father’s Bones by Brian Schofield

Bibliography:

]]> THE RED CONVERTIBLE by Louise Erdrich /2009/red-convertible-by-louise-erdrich/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:37:38 +0000 /?p=4451 Book Quote:

“So when I went there I knew the Dark Fish must rise. Plumes of radiance had soldered on me. No reservation girl had ever prayed so hard. There was no use in trying to ignore me any longer. I was going up there on the hill with the black-robe women. They were not any lighter than me. I was going up there to pray as good as they could, because I don’t have that much Indian blood. And they never thought they’d have a girl from this reservation as a saint they’d have to kneel to. But they’d have me. And I’d be carved in pure gold. With ruby lips. And my toenails would be little pink ocean shells, which they would have to stoop down off their high horse to kiss.”

Book Review:

Review by Terez Rose (AUG 27, 2009)

It is a daunting task to write a brief review about a 500 page book that holds thirty-six stories, most of which have been published in esteemed publications and spawned bestselling novels. Further, author Louise Erdrich is already known and beloved, a prolific, highly acclaimed writer of both short and long fiction. Her twelve novels include the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Love Medicine, and her most recent, A Plague of Doves, a 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her own heritage—her father was of German descent, her mother half French, half Ojibwe —is reflected into all of her stories, set in the land she grew up in.

The stories that comprise The Red Convertible are ordered in chronological fashion but also grouped by subject (several come together to form the basis of different novels). This collection is a gem—every last story is beautifully written, well-crafted, full of delicious lines, distilled and descriptive, emotionally searing without ever descending into sentimentality. Within these stories the past century rolls across the page, cultures clash, collaborate, life delivers its knocks and people try to rebound.

Erdrich is unafraid to plumb the depths of despair, love in all its forms, death, suicide, cancer, anything that might strike down her strong, vivid characters. But the stories’ sense of wit and irony save the collection from ever being perceived as too grim. Several stories, in fact, border on the hilarious, the fantastical. Shop owners, displaced people, teenagers, Native Americans, immigrants, nuns, musicians, men suckling babies—these all are part of the ensemble cast, several making cameo appearances in later stories. It becomes like a jigsaw puzzle, the way families and professions fit into the grand scheme of Erdrich’s fictional world. Readers familiar with her novels will find quite a few recognizable characters and stories here. Readers new to Erdrich are given a sampler platter of which novel might appeal to them.

What connects these diverse stories is a sense of place—geographic and otherwise. Most occur near or within the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota, not far from the Minnesota border, and all of its characters are engaged in a struggle—to make ends meet, to survive the minefields of marriage, of relationships, conflicts between the past and present or simply within the self. And what each story yields is a nugget of insight, of clarity, even if only to remind us that yes, life is a struggle, often violent, but within the suffering lies a certain fierce beauty, a glittering paradox.

In the eponymous “The Red Convertible,” a Native American Vietnam vet tries to pick up the pieces of his life after his military service, while his brother watches on, helpless. Two orphaned children struggle to upright themselves when forced to leave depression-era Minneapolis in “The Blue Velvet Box,” a story that served as the basis for the novel The Beet Queen. One of my favorite stories of the collection was “Naked Woman Playing Chopin,” which integrates two subjects of great interest to me: music and spirituality, in the form of a nun who is seduced by playing the piano music of Chopin, to the exclusion of all else.

Teen angst and the stigma of being poor is addressed in a searing yet tender fashion in “The Dress.” Here, we have a perfect problem—Dot and her mother think they’re splurging, while being budget-conscious, when they mail-order five “grab bag” dresses for a dollar each. When the dresses arrive, however, Dot discovers they are five of the same horrific print dress, her sole attire for the school year. This kind of humor mixed with unlikely pathos—Dot’s vulnerability amid the richer, prettier girls is just aching— represents what else I enjoyed in the collection: tragicomic writing centered in the everyday. Daily life struggles made both buffoonish and noble.

“Fleur,” too, is another wonderfully compelling story, with a brilliantly drawn, strong warrior-like female character, clashing with every man she encounters. Also mesmerizing is “Saint Marie” (from which the opening excerpt is taken), a wondrous, scathing, bittersweet account of a reservation girl’s desire for Catholic enlightenment, which pits convent life and its nuns against reservation values and beliefs.

In “History of the Puyats,” Erdrich serves us grittier fare, while maintaining her lyricism and fine storytelling, even offering dollops of humor in the first part. The story takes a dark turn, however, culminating in loss of life, followed by the systematic emotional destruction of a young girl and her mother. Elegantly rendered, it nonetheless became a struggle to finish. Was the story metaphorical of the struggles of the Native American? Was I getting a cultural lesson? Most likely, yes. The story’s violence shifts from the plight of the characters to that of the buffalo, in a scene of carnage foretelling their demise as a species, a slaughter of 800. The surviving buffalos linger at the site long afterward, grieving, eventually charging, trampling the carcasses.

“The buffalo were taking leave of the earth and all they loved, said the old chiefs and hunters after years had passed and they could tell what split their hearts. The buffalo went crazy with grief to see the end of things. Like us, they saw the end of things and like many of us, many today, they did not care to live. What does that tell you about the great pain of the end of things that lives in every family, here on the reservation? The daughter was, of course, the warped result of all that twisted her mother. She was the hope, the poison, what came next, beyond the end of things. She was the residue of what occurred when some of our grief-mad people trampled their children. And so the history of the Puyats is the history of the end of things. It is bound up in despair and the red beasts’ lust for self-slaughter, an act the priests call suicide, which our people rarely practiced until now.”

Do I recommend this collection? Certainly. Buy it, however. No chance of borrowing it from the library and reading it in a short period of time. It’s just too dense. It’s like a vat of chocolate mousse. Each bite is exquisite, but when you’re only halfway done, you start feeling a little queasy from too much stimulus, too much intensity, much of it uncomfortable, unsettling—which, of course, is the literary fiction writer’s goal. You have to pause, switch to nonfiction or some fluff commercial fiction to ease the tension in your head before you can go back for more. But when you do return—wow. There are no clunkers in this collection. This is pure, unadulterated, quality fiction.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 11 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper; 1 edition (January 6, 2009)
REVIEWER: Terez Rose
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Louise Erdrich
EXTRAS: Another review of The Red Convertible
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: No need to refer you to other authers!
Here are the Louise Erdrich books also reviewed on MF:

However if you are looking for similar authors, try Michael Dorris or Susan Power

Bibliography:

**Ojibwe reservation

With her husband, Michael Dorris:

For Young Readers:

Nonfiction:

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