The Wooden Indian Resurrection: Coming of Age in Middle Age

ISBN-13: 9780998952604 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 332 str.

Trish Hermanson

Opis

First love - betrayal - lost love - then an unforgettable showdown that changes everything. "A poignant reminder that we must face - not run from - our deepest fears." Jean Snedegar, reporter/producer, BBC Radio and West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Deborah Running Bear's spirit is as dead as the wooden Indian she impersonates at work. She festers with bitterness from a stab in the back from white high school girlfriends that led to her arrest and exile. The incident shattered her romance with a white boy and her dream of college. It was 1968, and Deborah had "gone white," embracing a Norwegian-Lutheran town and its high school bubble of Beatles, basketball, and boys. But underneath the glow of her senior year, tensions simmered, leaving her with mysteries that haunted her. After Martin Luther King was assassinated and race riots broke out, why did townsfolk cast suspicious eyes her way? Why did they toss her out? And the most troubling question, did her boyfriend get shipped home from Vietnam in a body bag? After being forced from the community, Deborah turns her back on white culture, marries a Native, and becomes an activist in the American Indian Movement. But the siege of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, leaves her a widow and single mother. By Deborah's accounting, her life is a waste: a dead husband, dead relationships with her elderly father and her grown son, and a dead-end job as a wooden Indian. After years of hiding and waging war with herself, she's discovered by her former white girlfriends. Inflamed that they found her, and hoping to heal from past wounds, she confronts them at a historic cavalry fort in the Midwest. But will facing enemies set her free, or will secrets revealed lead to more pain? Must she tread a trail of forgiveness to find life's second chances, or could she be deceived again? Deborah's search for wholeness is a journey of coming of age in middle age. Of experiencing it's never too late to become who you're meant to be. And of discovering she can love passionately again. Trish Hermanson writes about racial outsiders with the sensitivity of Jamie Ford and Sue Monk Kidd. Like William Kent Krueger, she crafts vivid settings through careful period detail. Prior to publication, the story captured awards from Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Pikes Peak Writers. Although it confronts the ugliness of racism, it pays on the promise of the triumph of the human spirit and a feel-good ending. "The story captured me so I could hardly wait to read another chapter." Vickie Brennan Dykes, Akta Lakota Museum, Chamberlain, South Dakota. "A remarkable tale filled with layers of meaning. Just as the wounding of one affects us all, so does the healing of one. That's a story we need to hear." Patrick Dorn, Denver arts critic, playwright, and author. "An epic drama set within themes that make Dakota 'Dakota.' A delicious read." Thomas A. Dempster, former South Dakota State Senator.