The purpose of this book was to show how Native families are stitched together but are also distinctively diverse.
All in all, it shows the story of one man troubled from birth and healing into older adulthood. It shows how the people in his life came together at different points and in different ways to support him.
In an interesting style, it is written from everyone else’s POV until the very final chapter, which is finally written from our MC’s POV. Oscar Hokeah talks about how hard it was to discover voice in writing in his essay at the end. His study and work show in every chapter. Every character had a strong, unique voice that highly reflected their background. This was an amazing job on the author’s part! Everyone came from different lives and backgrounds, yet were woven together like the stitches in the novel’s quilts. This was very nicely portrayed and executed!
I was a little thrown by the use of other languages sometimes. I think it was good for speech flavor and the reality of diversity, but I was disappointed by the lack of explanation. Some of the words were explained well enough, but for others the context clues weren’t enough for me to figure out the meaning of the words very well. I love learning about languages, and unfortunately I couldn’t find definitions even through online research of given Kiowa or Cherokee words.
For writing study, I would recommend this book for the use of multiple points of view, writing similar, yet diverse cultures, and—Writing a story where the main character is not the POV character!
Issues I had with the writing: Sometimes, it did seem to deviate away from Ever, the main character, and I prefer to focus on one person or major plotline. This is literary fiction, and perhaps I am just more attached to genre fiction in this way. However, I do recognize the great benefits of this tactic (shifting focus, going into detailed backstories of a new character every chapter) for the overarching themes of diversity and togetherness. The writing always managed to find its way back to Ever and connect to him, but I didn’t care for the length of the deviations.
This book is not in my school library—yet—but I was very excited to read it. The author helped me with a world building idea a while back and I was very happy to be able to support his project in return. This was an amazing feat to accomplish and a PEN America Literary Award winner! Well deserved.
Well, everyone! This is the first book I finished in this new year. Happy reading and I hope you find your way this year! ❤
N. K. Valek: Author 