Archive for the ‘Native Americans’ Tag
Louise Erdrich seamlessly weaves together a fast-paced, engaging story of young love, manipulative relationships, the environment and secrets in The Mighty Red.
This novel is rich in well-developed characters beginning with Kismet is a bright, sensitive yet impulsive high school senior with plans to leave her small town in the rural Red River Valley of North Dakota. Her best friend is Hugo, a brilliant home-schooled social outcast is in love with Kismet. Gary is the son of the wealthiest family in town and star quarterback. He’s not an enigma but carries a dark secret, and is also in love with Kismet. He’s desperate to marry her believing that she can help him forget that which haunts him.
Yes, there are adults, but the actions of some are less mature than the teens. Gary’s mother and Kismet’s father have their own (unrelated) agendas, which alternate between the comical and sad. Only Crystal, Kismet’s mother, seems to have a logical take on things, until she briefly doesn’t.
The tragic humor Erdrich interjects throughout the narrative is not limited to the relationships, but also to the over-cultivation of the land, land that once belonged to Native Americans and now makes a lucky few rich through sugarbeet farming. There’s no mistaking the irony that Crystal and Kismet are Ojibwe; with the mother driving the crops to the sugar refinery and Kismet as the farmer’s son object of desire.
As critical as the characters are to the storyline, the land is also a significant element.
The Mighty Red
Four Bookmarks
Harper, 2024
372 pages
In the late 1930s Gertrude Stein wrote of Oakland, Calif., “… there, there is no there there.” It’s apt, then, that Tommy Orange has co-opted part of the quote as the title of his novel. Orange introduces readers to several Native Americans whose lives intersect in the city on the East Bay.
Never as glamourous, wealthy or viewed in as positive a light as San Francisco, Oakland is, nonetheless, the focal point for Orange with different perspectives provided by the 12 characters he introduces. Their stories, told in separate chapters, are shaped by the urban environment and the upcoming Big Oakland Pow Wow.
Violence, alcoholism, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, traditions, estranged families and more are contributing factors to the scenarios Orange creates. Most are heart-breaking, yet humor and joy are also evident.
Opal Viola Violet Bear is first introduced as an 11-year-old in 1970 when her mother brings her and her older sister, Jacqui, to Alcatraz as part of the all-tribe occupation. She re-enters the story through the eyes of her grandson, Orvil Red Feather. Except, technically, Opal is Orvil’s and his two younger brothers aunt. Although his name clearly identifies his heritage, he knows little about it. He discovers dance regalia in Opal’s closet. He learns what he can about Indian dance and culture online. The Pow Wow is his chance to be part of something he knows very little about.
Reasons for the others to attend the Pow Wow range from dark to hopeful, which makes the narrative so engaging.
There There
Four Bookmarks
Alfred A. Knoph, 2018
290 pages
The Blue Page Special 