POWER

by Linda Hogan ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 1998

Before her time, a 16-year-old Native American girl is thrust into adult turmoil as the only witness to the shooting by her best friend of an endangered Florida panther, in Hogan's (Solar Storm, 1995, etc.) latest complex exploration of Native ways and the environment at risk. Omishto (a Taiga name meaning ""One Who Watches"") is one of the last of her tribe, and though only an adolescent she's already experienced many horrors: her older brother burning to death, her stepfather's physical abuse and lust, her mother's desperate, self-destructive effort to pass as white. When a hurricane comes along, flattening the land and trapping her outside, she sees deer flying and Methuselah, a tree dating from before the Spanish arrival, uprooted. After the storm, nothing seems the way it was before, so when her friend and protector Ama--like Omishto, a member of the Panther Clan--takes her on a trek through the devastation to find and shoot the panther Ama calls ""Grandmother,"" the hunt seems as unreal as everything else. Reality hits home only when Ama is arrested and tried for the killing, and Omishto is called to testify. Ama is found not guilty, but she then has to face an even more harrowing trial: that of the tribal elders, who accuse her of trying to gain spiritual power by killing a sacred animal. Omishto, who must testify before the elders, finally begins to understand why her friend acted as she did--but she's sworn by Ama not to say why. Because of that, Ama is banished from the tribe. Maintaining a difficult balance between her understanding and her sense of loss, Omishto moves into Ama's house, forsaking her own family, to decide what path her own life should follow. While the narrative often seems an uneasy blend of the visionary and the message-driven, the result is nonetheless an evocative coming-of-age saga. And the portrait of nature's elemental power is distinctive and haunting.

Pub Date: May 26, 1998

ISBN: 0393319687

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998

Categories: FICTION