Catherine Keene

Honestly, I should give 2 stars to the book. But when we pick up a novel, we expect to enjoy the story, or at least some aspect of it. I didn't. As a story, this is a terrible book. This is not because of the structure of the jumbled 2nd and 3rd person narratives, but because not a single character grows in this book. They learn nothing through the experiences of the book. Unless they are dead, they are unchanged. It's just some character sketches and violence. Oh, and two really good essays on painful and problematic aspects of Native American culture. Seriously, the essays are very good. Read those. The characters viewed as character sketches are OK. Individually, they're fine, some are even likable. What the author has chosen to focus on, and present to the reader, is the worst of their lives. It's like reading the excerpts of the diaries they wrote for their therapist when the therapist asked, "So, what was bothering you BEFORE the shooting at the Powwow?" The picture is less than complete, whatever is healthy or brought joy to them is shoved hard into the background as the focus is just a snapshot of some uncomfortable shitty situations that happened before the worst of it. If you are interested in reading about the destructive life effects of dissociation and alcohol/drug abuse and don't understand how they may affect young people, this book would be an excellent tool. If you're looking for an interesting narrative story where some interesting people go to a powwow, the clever ways that disparate people's lives come together with meaning you will be horribly disappointed.