[.ca] Roofwalker (ISBN 157131041X)

mimicking Louise Erdrich?:
While the author does have a lyrical way with words I found that in the end I didn't remember much. As another reviewer also stated the book ( Grass Dancer ) seemed to cruise across the surface and I didn't get a deep feeling from the book. I will read the new book the first chance I get however. Her writing does seem an awful lot like Louise Erdrich even thought Louise Erdrich gave her a glowing review. The lay out of the story and charchter developememt all seem simalar to Erdich's style.

Powerful:
Susan Power masterfully blends fantasy, myth, and "Real Life" in this collection of "Urban Indians," frequently centered around the Chicago Native American Center. Guided by many Native voices, the reader is drawn along from pregnancy and birth to wasicum Nursing Home and death and back again in the circle of lives. Historical stops along the way to Here and Now include White Stone Hill, Little Big Horn, the "Indian ReOrganization" of the 1930's, and "relocation" of the 1950's. Of particular poignancy is the tale of St. Jude and the "Angry Fish" and the visitation of grandma's dress in the Field Museum of Natural History. Published by Milkweed, Reviewed by TundraVision

Fiction and fact from mixed-race Native female author:
This book is a collection of fictional and autobiographical stories. The book is small and each chapter is too. I don't know if it's because it's printed by a smaller press or what. Regardless, unfortunately, the reader sometimes gets impressions of stories and characters rather than something more in-depth. I was much more excited about the autobiographical section, yet it too turned out to be short and scant. The best chapter was one in which a Native woman talks about her first days at an Ivy League college. Noticeably, it's located at the end of the fictional section and just before the factual section: could this have been shifted? There are four positive things here. First, Power's respect for elders shines through. This is quite an anti-ageist text. Second, she celebrates biraciality. From her own story to a story about an Anglo-Latina to one about a Native with red hair, Power loves seeing the races come together in bodies and children. Biracial rights activists will love this book. Third, the author is uneasy about Christianity. Clergy members and saints are not viewed highly here. I think her point is to challenge assumptions that all Americans must be Christian. She is trying to maintain a space where Native spirituality can remain intact. Fourth, she mentions Chicago often. Though I've never met any Natives in my hometown, I think she makes Chicago look good and she is accepting of it as a decent place for urban Indians. Still, this book mentions so much death (murders, death by childbirth, stillborn babies, suicide, etc.). Unlike Native feminist scholar Paula Gunn Allen who said Native female work celebrates life, this book definitely repeats so many of the tragic Native tropes of death, abuse, and alcoholism. I wish the author the most success, but I'm not quite sure what to think about the book overall.

Dakota Values in the English Language:
Susan Power's second book more than fulfills the promise suggested by her earlier novel, The Grass Dancer. In a collection of fictional stories and nonfiction histories, she shows an incredible facility, even majesty, with the English language even as she shares with the reader both Lakota/Dakota faith and practice and the pains and pleasures of being principally an urban Indian with sometimes only a genetic memory of the Great Plains. Her characters are original and quirky--and therefore ring true, even as she causes readers to rethink not only the place and plight of American Indians but of all caring people who are destined to live, love, understand, misunderstand, forgive, become ill, and die then to reach not an exclusive Christian heaven denied to most but to an "Indian heaven \othat\c is democratic, it is home, it is the place where we shall all meet again to join in the Great Powwow which goes on well into the night." As an English professor, I await with great expectation the opportunity to teach a Contemporary Literature course this summer when I will share this special text with undergraduate students.