White Magic

Staff Top Fives 2020-2021

Our favorite books of 2020-2021.

Interwoven with mystical themes it challenges as much as celebrates, White Magic is a layered, structurally innovative memoir. It is many things: a narrative about addiction and what lives beneath it; a map of landscapes, both physical and emotional; an unearthing of generational trauma; a story about feeling lost in a place that’s supposed to be home. Ultimately, heartbreak leads Washuta to find her own authority... as a "powerful witch." Thankfully, the book gives no easy answer about what witchcraft or magic mean, but through its vulnerability, stylistic ingenuity, and authentic voice, the book weaves a spell of its own. Recommended By Ariel K., Powells.com

Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, "starter witch kits" of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning.

In this collection of intertwined essays, she writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life — Twin Peaks, the Oregon Trail II video game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham — to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule.

“A fascinating magic trick of a memoir that illuminates a woman's search for meaning.” Kirkus (Starred Review)

“Washuta's frank confrontations with, and acknowledgments of, unhealed wounds are validating....evoking the sense of peeling open a letter from an estranged friend. A poignant work by a rising essayist." Foreword Reviews (Starred Review)

“Her prose is crisp and precise, and the references hit spot-on....Fans of the personal essay are in for a treat." Publishers Weekly

“Riveting and insightful.” Ms. Magazine

“In this potent, illuminating memoir in essays, Elissa Washuta, a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, digs into her relationship with magic and the occult....Touching on love, heritage, identity, and faith, White Magic is resonant and weighty.” BuzzFeed

“Elissa Washuta's newest collection of essays is coming out in 2021 — and they may be exactly what you need right now.” O, The Oprah Magazine

“White Magic is funny and wry, it's thought-provoking and tender. It's a sleight of hand performed by a true master of the craft. White Magic is magnificent and Elissa Washuta is spellbinding. There is no one else like her.” Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things

“These pages are windows into a black lodge where Twin Peaks and Fleetwood Mac are on repeat — sometimes forward, sometimes backwards, sometimes in blackout blur. I stand in awe of everything here. What an incredible and wounding read.” Richard van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed

“Elissa Washuta is exactly the writer we need right now: as funny as she is formidable a thinker, as thoughtful as she is inventive — her scrutiny is a fearless tool, every subject whittled to its truest form.” Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood

“White magic, red magic, Stevie Nicks magic — this is Elissa Washuta magic, which is a spell carved from a life, written in blood, and sealed in an honesty I can hardly fathom.” Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians

Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a nonfiction writer. She is the author of Starvation Mode and My Body Is a Book of Rules, named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. With Theresa Warburton, she is co-editor of the anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the Ohio State University.