Here’s to a Happy Native American Heritage Month with a slew of recommendations from Native authors both old and new. As per usual, we love poring over the multitude of books for each genre, but this month features a few of our personal evening regulars. The majority of these picks lend themselves to the upcoming holiday season and any Thanksgiving Break downtime, so sit back, relax, and enjoy some cozy fall fiction:
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange:
A 21st Century Classic in the making, Wandering Stars, uniquely captures the inveterate effects of institutional oppression against Native Americans beginning back in Nineteenth Century Oakland. Fast-forwarding from the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and the main protagonist, Jude Star’s, subsequent escape seven generations later in 2018, Orange poetically describes how the Bear Shield/Red Feather family battles – at times succumbing to, and at others succumbing to – loss, addiction, and ethnic marginalization. The pain and perseverance of each of Orange’s characters burst off the page and left us in equal measures of awe towards his idiosyncrasies and antipathy towards American society.
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich:
If one ever wanted an addicting magical realism, paranormal fiction novel that exceeds all expectations in terms of prose, plotline, and characters, The Sentence is it. The novel follows Tookie, a previously incarcerated Ojibwe woman, who now fills her days working at a local Minneapolis bookstore. After being thrown into a fractured life post-prison, she must contend with the ghost of a past customer, Flora, for an entire year. What does Flora intend to achieve by haunting Tookie’s store, and how will she push Tookie along in rediscovering her purpose? – Give this sumptuous story a read!
She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo:
Personally, I find fall to be one of the most suitable times to read poetry: everything feels soft and fickle, like it awaits your transformation. Joy Harjo has written her fair share of poetry, along with being the United States’ 23rd poet laureate, winning the American Book Award of 1991, American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, 2-time Outstanding Young Women of America Award recipient, and dozens more. If one thing echoes: Hajro was born a storyteller. Her powerful poetry resonates not only with her Muscogee ancestors and other Indigenous Peoples but has also broken barriers for feminist poetry worldwide. Her words have been captivating readers since the 1970s, but She Had Some Horses, an 1983 collection of poetry, remains a favorite of ours and is one of the poetry staples sitting on our shelves at home.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters:
Instantly a top-ten read, The Berry Pickers perfectly melds grief with homecoming. It’s not an elegy, but a hard-lived collage of love. It’s not a light read, but the heavy truth of being haunted by secrets and ghosts of the past. It’s not a linear story, but a cycle of death and rebirth. This domestic fiction read combines mystery, longing, and history with the heartbreaking kidnapping of four-year-old Ruthie and its profound effects on not only her own childhood, adulthood, and overall understanding of life, but also those of her siblings and parents. Peters’ nimble cadence and enthralling plotline turned this into a page-turner, one I’ll never forget – the perfect homey fall novel.
Happy November and almost holiday season! We hope you enjoyed these recommendations and find some time to sit down with your book this Thanksgiving Break!
“History is a narrative; it’s a collection of stories sanctioned by the ruling power, and reinforced through words and images that suit them. That was the whole point of taking on history painting: to authorize these moments that have been swept under the rug for generations.” – Kent Monkman
– Lily and Simone.
