The Shaman's Game by James D. Doss

For the Ute of Southern Colorado, the annual Sun Dance is among the most solemn and sacred of rituals. But too often recently Death has been an uninvited guest at the hallowed ceremony. None of the deceased has sustained visible, life-ending injuries, so Charlie Moon is reluctant to call it murder. Yet he knows there was nothing "natural" about the unexplained deaths of young and strong dancers, like the blue-armed Shoshone, Joseph Sparrow.

Daisy Perika is also aware of the events unfolding around her, but unlike her skeptical policeman nephew, she trusts the rumors of sorcery that travel like smoke on the wind. For there is much the eyes cannot see and the hands cannot touch; and the spirits have sent her words and signs warning there is great evil in her midst...and that there are many more corpses to follow.

The return of a childhood friend -- a beautiful Ute woman back from college to write a newspaper story revealing who, or what, is stealing men's lives -- has raised the stakes in Charlie Moon's investigation. With those he cares for deeply suddenly in harm's way, perhaps he should heed his friend Parris's suggestion that he look beyond the rational for answers. But Charlie has seen all too often the lethal results of hatred, bitterness and delusion. And it's these very real human failings he is determined to explore in order to catch a killer before Death darkens the Sun Dance once again.

Goodreads description

As regular readers of this blog will know I like mystery stories, whether magic realist ones or not. In the case of magic realist mysteries (such as The Shaman's Game) the magic brings another layer to the mystery - it introduces alternative motivations, different belief structures, additional mystery, and on occasion a different answer to the mystery. I will not tell you whether the latter applies to this book for obvious reasons.

I really enjoyed The Shaman's Game. James D.Doss is not a writer with whom I was familiar and had to go to a specialist crime bookshop to find his book (and then only one), which suggests that he may not be published in the UK. He was worth the effort. 

The Shaman's Game is the fourth book in the Charlie Moon series. Interestingly my copy says it is the fourth in the Shaman series. As Daisy Perika, detective Charlie Moon's aunt, is the shaman in the title this suggests there may have been a shift in the emphasis in the series. The balance between the two main characters in this book is pretty equal. This is in some ways indicative of the balance one finds in the genre between magic and realism. Charlie approaches the deaths of the sun dancers as a rational detective, looking for evidence and believing in rational answers. Daisy thinks he is ignoring the spirit world. There is a loving, if not always respectful, rivalry between the two. 

But the characters are more complex than that. Daisy may be the shaman, but she will back up her magic with practical plans to ensure the result she wants. When Daisy visits the pitukupf, the Ute leprechaun, she brings gifts for the little spirit, sets them down by the entrance to his lair and settles down to dream. When she leaves, she does not look back and verify that the gifts had been removed by the pitukupf. We read the debate in her head on the subject - to look back would be to show disrespect for the spirit, there was no need as she had seen the gifts in his hands in her dream. At the end of the book Charlie makes a similar decision, when he is confronted with the fact that his Ute belief systems may have been suppressed but are still there. 

It would be wrong to finish a review of Doss's work without mentioning the richness of his writing. His descriptions of the land and nature in which the story takes place are lovely and you feel how their homeland impacts on the beliefs of the characters. I can just see Daisy's lonely caravan with its creaky porch watched by three peaks, believed to have once been three sisters. Nor should I fail to mention that the book is strewn with wry humour, including some clever use of characters' thoughts contradicting their words. 

I recommend this book.

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Coyote Springs is the only all-Indian rock band in Washington State—and the entire rest of the world. Thomas Builds-the-Fire takes vocals and bass guitar, Victor Joseph hits lead guitar, and Junior Polatkin rounds off the sound on drums. Backup vocals come from sisters Chess and Checkers Warm Water. The band sings its own brand of the blues, full of poverty, pain, and loss—but also joy and laughter.

It all started one day when legendary bluesman Robert Johnson showed up on the Spokane Indian Reservation with a magical guitar, leaving it on the floor of Thomas Builds-the-Fire’s van after setting off to climb Wellpinit Mountain in search of Big Mom.

In Reservation Blues, National Book Award winner Alexie vaults with ease from comedy to tragedy and back in a tour-de-force outing powered by a collision of cultures: Delta blues and Indian rock.

From the Amazon description 

Having read a lot of new magic realism books lately I decided that this week I would read and review a magic-realist classic. I hadn't read this novel before this week and boy was it a joy. Sherman Alexie's work is an example of what is great about magic realism. 

It shows without sentimentality the harsh reality of life on the reservation - the alcoholism, the poverty, the violence and, something I have seen myself in working with disadvantaged people, the dislike of those of their own who might be about to do something with their lives. There are good reasons why Coyote Springs sing the blues, apart from Robert Johnson's devilish guitar. But Alexie manages to portray all this in a novel which is at times funny, surreal, beautiful and, yes, magical. 

On the face of it a straightforward story well told, there are layers of meaning and imagery in Reservation Blues that give it depth and width. An example of this is the band's treatment at the hands of the Cavalry Records. Not only does this show the cynical exploitation of the Indian image and culture (the company prefers to dress up two white women as Indians than deal with the real thing), but also the record executives are called Armstrong, Wright and Sheridan. All three are the names of US cavalry commanders who led the genocide of the Indian Wars.

Dreams feature prominently in the book, adding both historical perspectives and insights into the past lives of the members of the band.The use of dreams is sometimes derided by critics as a cop-out, a shorthand, but Alexie sets up his use of dreams by explaining their role in native American culture and in the lives of the individual members of the band: Junior based all of his decisions on his dreams and visions, which created a lot of problems.

Over the course of the novel the characters and the backstories of the band members are revealed and the reader comes to understand and even like them - even Victor and Junior who start the book as bullies and drunks. Indeed the conclusion of Junior's story is haunting.

Magic pervades the book - the traditional magic of Big Mom, the burning strings of Robert Johnson's guitar and Thomas' storytelling magic, which climbed into your clothes like sand, gave you itches that could not be scratched.  Victor fights against the magic and old beliefs, refusing to believe, but nevertheless the magic is there, like the ghostly horses screaming in the night. This book is the same, a magical book that stays with you.

The Storyteller's Bracelet by Smoky Zeidel

It is the late 1800s, and the U.S. Government has mandated native tribes send their youth to Indian schools where they are stripped of their native heritage by the people they think of as The Others.
Otter and Sun Song are deeply in love, but when they are sent East to school, Otter, renamed Gideon, tries to adapt, where Sun Song does not, enduring brutal attacks from the school headmaster because of her refusal to so much as speak.

Gideon, thinking Sun Song has spurned him, turns for comfort to Wendy Thatcher, the daughter of a wealthy school patron, beginning a forbidden affair of the heart. But the Spirits have different plans for Gideon and Sun Song. They speak to Gideon through his magical storyteller's bracelet, showing him both his past and his future. You are both child and mother of The Original People, Sun Song is told. When it is right, you will be safe once more.

Will Gideon become Otter once again and return to Sun Song and his tribal roots, or attempt to remain with Wendy, with whom he can have no future?

Goodreads description

This is a story which takes a terrible and hidden part of American history - the enforced schooling of Native American children in the ways of the white man. There is an excellent Wikipedia article on the subject here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools which reveals that the events depicted in The Storyteller's Bracelet - such as the abuse of Sun Song by the evil headmaster - are very much based on what really happened. Hats off to Smoky Zeidel for writing about the subject and doing so in a way that gives us an excellent story whilst not shirking from the darkness of the subject. Sadly the removal of indigenous children from their homes to often brutal boarding schools with the aim of taking away their culture and identity was not confined to North America.

The novel is not simply an account of Otter and Sun Song's experience in the school. It is also a spiritual and mythical journey, which evolves into a creation story. The fact that magic realism is so often focused on a clash between a dominant white European culture and an indigenous one is a problem for those of us white European authors who want to explore the subject. How does one approach it without appropriating the indigenous culture one is writing about? Smoky Zeidel is very clear that she is not Native American and so rather than take one first nation's experience and legends as her focus, she has drawn on different First Nations' beliefs and culture to create a creation story of her own. She does so with huge respect, admiration and love for the beliefs in question. That is one approach. Another, and one I followed, is to create a realistic fantasy world. Some people may understandably argue that no appropriation is acceptable. But where does that leave the freedom of the artist and the imagination? Comments/thoughts welcome.

Smoky Zeidel is an excellent storyteller herself. The central characters are well drawn - sympathetic while not being perfect. The pacing of the story was compelling. Recommended.

I received this book from the author in return for a fair review.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson

A young Native American woman remembers her volatile childhood as she searches for her lost brother in the Canadian wilds in an extraordinary, critically acclaimed debut novel

As she races along Canada’s Douglas Channel in her speedboat—heading toward the place where her younger brother Jimmy, presumed drowned, was last seen—twenty-year-old Lisamarie Hill recalls her younger days. A volatile and precocious Native girl growing up in Kitamaat, the Haisla Indian reservation located five hundred miles north of Vancouver, Lisa came of age standing with her feet firmly planted in two different worlds: the spiritual realm of the Haisla and the sobering “real” world with its dangerous temptations of violence, drugs, and despair. From her beloved grandmother, Ma-ma-oo, she learned of tradition and magic; from her adored, Elvis-loving uncle Mick, a Native rights activist on a perilous course, she learned to see clearly, to speak her mind, and never to bow down. But the tragedies that have scarred her life and ultimately led her to these frigid waters cannot destroy her indomitable spirit, even though the ghosts that speak to her in the night warn her that the worst may be yet to come.

Publisher's description

This is another excellent example of magic realist writing by a member of the North American native peoples. In this case the writer is from the Canadian Haisla people who live in British Columbia. Monkey Beach is full of the detail of the Haisla life, which is a significant part of its appeal. The book, like its heroine, at once embraces elements of Haisla tradition and mysticism and at the same time faces the hard realities of life. Not least of those realities is the legacy of abuse experienced by Lisa's uncle and aunt in the residential schools that a generation of Haisla children were forced into. One of the aspects of the book which I admired was the way Eden Robinson did not overplay this, relying instead on the reader's intelligence to work out what happened to Mick and how that was still impacting on him and his behaviour.

It is generally accepted that an important element in magic realism is the portrayal of a world in which the spiritual life of an indigenous people comes up against the dominant rationalist beliefs of the colonizer. But, as I have noted elsewhere in this blog, there is also a role for magic realism in the portrayal of psychology. It seemed to me when I read this book that the magic realism here was as much about Lisa's psychology as a cultural clash. Lisa is a feisty teenager with a tendency to confront rather than flee. But when it comes to the "gift" of foresight, she tries to ignore it. When something terrible is going to happen she is visited by a little red-headed man. I was reminded of Graham Joyce's Toothfairy when I read about Lisa's visitor. Lisa's resistance results in a crisis when she blames herself for her grandmother's death and she runs away from the ancestral homeland to the big city, where she sinks into a cycle of hedonism and self abuse. Eventually saved by the ghost (?) of her cousin, she returns home and in so doing starts to rediscover herself, seeing a Sasquatch on the road:I felt deeply comforted knowing that magical things were still living in the world.

The monkeys in the title are the legendary Sasquatch or bigfoot, who appear throughout the book, but always in our peripheral vision. Robinson's writing in some ways is more "realist" than in other novels I have read tackling similar subjects. At times the magic is so vague as to make it unclear whether it is not just a dream or Lisa's imagination. Lisa herself is unclear. I liked this ambiguity and felt it to be an accurate portrayal of real-life magic. 

The book is told in a series of flashbacks. These are at times confusing, but so they should be - we are inside Lisa's head as she travels not only to a real location but also to a legendary one. Her journey is a mystical one, she is travelling to the land of the Sasquatch, to the land of ghosts and the dead. As she nears her destination the tone and style of the writing changes. Some people might find the shift somewhat abrupt and thus might find the ending unsatisfactory. I didn't, though I could also have done with more knowledge about the beliefs and customs which lie under the text, as I felt I was missing out on some things which are significant.

The novel was first published in 2000 and now has been digitized and published by Open Road Media as an ebook along with two other books by the same author.  I received my copy from the publisher in return for a fair review.

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power

Back in the 1860s, Ghost Horse, a handsome young heyo'ka, or sacred clown, loved and lost the beautiful warrior woman Red Dress. Since then, their spirits have sought desperately to be reunited, and it is the ceaseless playing out of this drama that shapes the sometimes violent fate of those who have come after them. Now, in the 1980s, Charlene Thunder, a teenage descendant of Red Dress, is in love with Harley Wind Soldier, the dashing traditional dancer of Ghost Horse's lineage. When Harley's redheaded soul mate, Pumpkin, dies in a crash, Charlene guiltily suspects her own grandmother, the notorious witch Anna Thunder, of causing it - as she well may have caused the collision that claimed Harley's father and brother, which even today obsesses him. Charlene and Harley each strive in solitude to make peace with the ghosts of the old ways, while they contend with the living: Jeannette McVay, an eastern college student who has been studying the tribe; Crystal Thunder, who must escape the reservation in order to understand her past; Herod Small War, whose spiritual guidance is both revered and resented; Margaret Many Wounds, Harley's grandmother, who walks on the moon.

Goodreads description 

I loved this book and could hardly bear to put it down. In fact it is now one of my favourite magic realist books, which is saying a lot (this is the 116th review on this blog). There are some books that you should read in one sitting or as near to one as you can get. This is one such book. Each chapter in the book is almost a separate story, narrated by different characters at different times (it is important to make a note of the year that appears under each chapter heading). This patchwork of stories comes together to form the larger picture. This structure is why it is important to read the book rapidly, because you can lose your way if you take too long. I felt very much that I was dreaming when I read the book - experiencing a series of instances, visions, references that came in and out of focus, until at last they formed one vision. 

Dreaming and visions are at the heart of this book. The full story of Red Dress does not come until towards the end of the book, but she appears in the dreams and visions of the characters throughout the book. I read somewhere that that is how Susan Power got the idea for the book - the woman in a red dress appeared to her. The line between the real and the dream is constantly blurring. Which is real - the dream or the waking? Power makes it clear how central dreams were and are to Sioux culture. I can't help thinking that they should be more important to the culture of the white man (and woman in my case). It seems to me that we have lost something when we forgot to take our dreamworld as seriously as our waking. 

There are some memorable characters in this book - the most notable being the awful and awesome Anna (Mercury) Thunder. She could so easily have been a stereotype, but Power gives her a back story that shows that she was not always the witch she becomes and also explains why she changed. Of course the book's structure of telling characters' stories in reverse makes the revelation of Anna Thunder's past tragedy all the stronger.

If I have one criticism it is that there are perhaps too many characters to keep track of, especially as the book's chronology jumps about so much. One of the reasons for my confusion was that the storyline is structured almost as a series of variations on a theme, with incidents reappearing through the generations.  In this I was reminded of Alan Garner's books, which so influenced me as a child and which also feature legends that reappear in the present day.

I have read a number of excellent magic realist books dealing with the complexity of life of modern Native Americans in a predominantly white society, but none have shown mixed marriages and mixed parentage as this book does. The different generations (apart from Red Dress's) all feature inter-race relationships. And yet this book shows the native "magic" as very much a part of accepted everyday life. On the reservation magic just happens and everyone accepts it.  This is contrasted with the attitude of the white schoolteacher who comes to live with and study Anna Thunder.  Despite being around Anna and supposedly respecting Sioux heritage and culture, she is shocked and scared when she realizes that Anna can actually work her magic.  As Anna affirms: I am not a fairytale. 

No Anna you are not and nor are your beliefs and nor is magic realism.

House of Purple Cedar by Tim Tingle

"The hour has come to speak of troubled times. It is time we spoke of Skullyville." Thus begins Rose Goode's story of her growing up in Indian Territory in pre-statehood Oklahoma. Skullyville, a once-thriving Choctaw community, was destroyed by land-grabbers, culminating in the arson on New Year's Eve, 1896, of New Hope Academy for Girls. Twenty Choctaw girls died, but Rose escaped. She is blessed by the presence of her grandmother Pokoni and her grandfather Amafo, both respected elders who understand the old ways. Soon after the fire, the white sheriff beats Amafo in front of the town's people, humiliating him. Instead of asking the Choctaw community to avenge the beating, her grandfather decides to follow the path of forgiveness. And so unwinds this tale of mystery, Indian-style magical realism, and deep wisdom. It's a world where backwoods spiritualism and Bible-thumping Christianity mix with bad guys; a one-legged woman shop-keeper, her oaf of a husband, herbal potions, and shape-shifting panthers rendering justice. 

Goodreads description

One of the joys of this blog has been my discovery of novels by writers of native American heritage, such as Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, Alfredo Vea and Rudolfo Anaya. Now to that list I can add Tim Tingle. Tingle is perhaps better known for his children's books: Crossing Bok Chitto won the American Indian Youth Literature Award in 2008. This book however is for the adult market, although it would also be suitable to older children.

Maybe because of the author's background in writing children's literature the book has a gentleness and morality which was appealing. These didn't prevent the author from tackling hard subjects - the book opens with the murderous arson attack on a Choctaw school by white racists and two women in the story are victims of domestic violence. Nevertheless these are countered by both Amafo's choice of forgiveness rather than violent response and an attempt to understand the motivation of even the most vicious of men. A part of me (maybe the adult part) kept thinking that life isn't/wasn't like this, but then another part wanted the moral resolution that the book offers.

Justice prevails in this book. Amafo is able to find allies within the white community, such as the wonderful one-legged Maggie Johnston. Most importantly for the purpose of this blog the Choctaw central characters find allies in the natural world and the spirits of their family. This is where the magic realism appears, especially in the form of a panther, that may or may not be Rose's dead grandmother. As is so often the case in magic realist books, there is an ambiguity about what is happening at this crucial point in the story. But earlier we see the spirits of the dead through the eyes of the young narrator Rose, who has inherited her grandfather's sight: Rose, if you are real quiet and learn to see people, you can know the ones weighed down by death. Find out what makes them happy, what they like to do or talk about. Making Walking People laugh is a very good thing to do too, sweetheart. When the spirits laugh, everybody is happy.

Tim Tingle is an experienced oral storyteller and this shows in the book. House of Purple Cedar's central plot may be the serious matter of the persecution of Amafo and his family by the hateful marshal, but the book is leavened by the tale of how Maggie Johnston saves her future husband, Terrance, from the gallows. This tale of the most incompetent bank robber you can imagine reads like a comic fable. It had me giggling when Terrance is threatening to cut a hostage's throat with a butter knife to the bemusement of onlookers. But then there is something fable-like about the whole book. The story is partly told by an elderly Rose and it feels like something told by the fireside. Indeed, as I discovered in the book's acknowledgement section, the tale of the panther/protector had been inspired by just such an account by a real woman remembering her childhood. All of which reminds me of what Marquez once said: the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. 

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in return for a fair review.

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution.

Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and to the ancient stories of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremony that defeats the most virulent of afflictions—despair.

Goodreads Description

I will tell you something about stories,

[he said]

They aren't just entertainment. 

Don't be fooled. 

They are all we have, you see, 

all we have to fight off 

illness and death...

The only cure

I know

is a good ceremony,

that's what she said. 

So begins this remarkable book. It is at its simplest a tale about a young native American survivor of a Japanese death march being cured of his post-traumatic stress by an extended healing ceremony, which puts him back in touch with his roots. Central to the Pueblo belief is the role of stories within the ceremony and by extension within life itself. But the author argues that it is not enough to repeat the old ceremonies and the old stories. 

The first medicine man to attempt to treat Tayo is a traditional one, but he fails - Tayo vomits the medicine. Instead Tayo finds help from two other sources. The first is a traditional medicine man, Betonie, who combines modern artifacts such as calendars and phone books into the ceremonies and is like Tayo of mixed blood. At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only the growth keeps the ceremonies strong. The second is a woman, Montano, who is close to nature and shows Tayo the healing plants and ritual offerings to nature, as well as love, which he has not experienced before. 

Tayo's sickness is symbolic of the damage done to the Pueblo people through the theft and destruction of their land by the white man. This damage is particularly to be seen in the war veterans, who briefly had been accepted in white society (while they were in uniform) and had seen a world beyond their reservations. Outsiders in their own land once more they turn to drink and violence to fill the void. The damage to the people runs parallel to the white man's destruction of the land - sacred lands bounded by large barbed wire fences, wild animals that the Pueblo had honoured shot for sport, the uranium mine poisoning the surrounding land.

Tayo's illness and alienation are beautifully described: For a long time he had been white smoke. He did not realize that until he left the hospital, because white smoke had no consciousness of itself. It faded into the white world of their bed sheets and walls; it was sucked away by the words of doctors who tried to talk to the invisible scattered smoke... They saw his outline but they did not realize it was hollow inside.

Tayo's healing is in some ways a more general healing, his ceremony part of a wider ceremony for his people: he cried with the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern. the way all the stories fit together - the old stories, the war stories, their stories - to become the story that was still being told.  

I loved this book. It is a fine example of magic realism addressing real issues in a profound way and this is something I look for in a book.

Tracks by Louise Erdrich

A New York Times Bestseller, ‘Tracks’ is a masterpiece from Louise Erdrich, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction 2012 – a story for our times, narrated by a uniquely twentieth century figure.

By turns reticent, garrulous, spiritual and profane, Nanapush, like the Native American culture he belongs to, is a living contradiction – alien, beguiling, strong and dying…

Set in North Dakota, at a time in the early twentieth century when Indian tribes were struggling to keep what little remained of their lands, ‘Tracks’ is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their endurance – yet their pride and humour prohibit surrender.

The reader will experience shock and pleasure in encountering a group of characters that are compelling and rich in their vigour, clarity, and indomitable vitality.

Amazon  Description

Tracks is a tale of a key moment in the destruction of Native American culture and society in the face of illnesses brought by the white man (we started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall) and the machinations of the government officials and commercial companies interested in exploiting the natural resources that the Native Americans had both relied on and cherished:  once the bureaucrats sink their barbed pens into the lives of Indians, the paper starts flying, a blizzard of legal forms. 

The book follows the lives of two women. Fleur is an attractive young woman who loses her family to illness but is strong in the old ways, so much so that she is regarded by others as having magical powers. Pauline is half white and early on shows disdain for her native roots and expresses a desire to be like my grandfather, pure Canadian. This disdain expresses itself in a destructive spite towards Fleur and her family and  also in a masochistic Catholicism, which she uses to justify her actions. Both women are remarkable creations.

I wrote in my review of The Hummingbird's Daughter of duality. Here in another magic realist book we get duality. In fact, looking over the various books I have read as part of this magic realism challenge, dualism seems to be a regular element of the genre. As in The Hummingbird's Daughter we have two cultures meeting and clashing. Pauline's mind is torn apart by her two backgrounds. 

The duality in Tracks  is also reflected in the narrative structure. There are two narrators in the book, with alternate chapters spoken by Pauline and the old man Nanapush. Nanapush is a tribal elder, who has seen the destruction of the old ways: In the years I’d passed, I saw more change than in a hundred upon a hundred before.  He saved Fleur when she was found ill with her dead family and regards her as a pseudo-daughter. His narration is told to Fleur's estranged daughter in an effort to secure a reconciliation. It is not an accident that Nanapush is based on the Ojibwe trickster hero Nanabozho. In his tale Nanapush admits to tricking others and lying, so we are warned not to trust his narrative, although one gets the impression that his deception is done for good motives. Pauline's narrative is equally unreliable, but for reasons of her mental instability and self justification/delusion. 

One of the interesting aspects of this narrative structure is its impact on the magical elements. Both Nanapush and Pauline present Fleur as having magical powers linked to native spirits and nature: It was as if the Manitous all through the woods spoke through Fleur, loose, arguing. . . . Turtle's quavering scratch, the Eagle's high shriek, Loon's crazy bitterness, Otter, the howl of Wolf, Bear's low rasp. But should we always believe them? When I read Nanapush's accounts I didn't have any problems with the magic, but Pauline's account of magic, which in the second part of the book combines native American magic with visions of Jesus sitting on the stove, seemed more like the delusions of a tortured mind.

Another aspect of the narrative structure is that the central figure of Fleur is present but removed, always filtered through others' eyes. She is nevertheless a powerful presence in the book, haunting the actions and thoughts of others. This seems appropriate in that Fleur stands for the world that is being lost.   

by Zoe Brooks