Roofwalker

Rating:
Summary: mimicking Louise Erdrich?
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: Dakota Values in the English Language
Review: 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 [that] 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.

Rating:
Summary: Dakota Values in the English Language
Review: 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 [that] 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.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but she's done better.
Review: This is by the same lady who wrote The Grass Dancer. Roofwalker is a book of short stories and while several are wonderful, better than her first book, collectively they don't fit together well -- nothing unifies them beyond the broadest subject (Dakota Sioux living around Chicago) and that's not quite good enough a theme to link such different character voices.

It is a credit to Power's craft that each she can take so many separate characters and present them in such a way that an outsider like myself (I'm not of Native American heritage and I've never seen so much as a picture of Chicago) can relate to them, but this would have been a stronger collection had the author given us something more to connect them. Perhaps if each of the stories had included a response or reference to the Chicago Native Amerian Center or Power had included stories that take place away from Chicago as a contrast -- something to remind us of what these stories have in common.

In that sense, this is another great beach book -- it's best read in pieces so you can let a story roll around on your tongue for a while like a piece of hard candy before picking up the book again to read the next.



Rating:
Summary: mimicking Louise Erdrich?
Review: 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.