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REMNANTS OF THE FIRST EARTH

Name: REMNANTS OF THE FIRST EARTH
Author: Ray A. Young Bear
ISBN: 0-8021-1581-0

by Ray A. Young Bear ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1997

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A continuation of native American poet Young Bear's exuberant fictionalized memoirs, begun in Black Eagle Child (1992), featuring the further remarkable adventures and recollections of the writer Edgar Bearchild. This is not so much a sequel to that earlier work as another (and even more ambitious) take on the themes explored in the first volume, once again using first-person narrative, letters, and poetry to trace Bearchild's life growing up in the 1960s and '70s on the Black Eagle Child Settlement in Iowa. ``Knowledge was the real issue,'' the adult Bearchild, a controversial poet, reflects at one point, ``knowledge needed by the next generation to facilitate their spiritual passage,'' and there's no doubt that a part of what Young Bear (a member of the Mesquakie tribe) is doing is to preserve a portrait of the rich, complex spirituality of his people, and of the way in which it penetrates every aspect of Native American life. Bearchild's often comic collisions with tribal folklore (which his family is determined, whether he likes it or not, that he should learn) deftly make plain the central role that a reverence for the past plays in maintaining the tribe's identity. He's also interested in tracing the ways in which this heritage is filtered through an individual's imagination, and transformed. Bearchild's life on and off the reservation is variously rendered as a mock epic, a spiritual quest, and a seriocomic adventure. There's also considerable anger here. As Bearchild notes, when reflecting on the current fascination with all things native, many Indians still regard white society as a ''master mouse-catching cat race that sadistically maimed its aboriginal prey for entertainment.'' Out of an idiosyncratic mix of folktales, rowdy adventures, and religious imagery, Young Bear has fashioned a powerful, utterly distinctive, and unsettling portrait of Native American life. It is one of the most interesting (and audacious) ongoing projects in American letters.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-8021-1581-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.