Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Praise for LeAnne Howe:
"Howe's voice is so utterly unique, comparisons can't do her justice. . . . This volume is a gift from a rich place-wise, generous, exciting, and completely fresh." --Susan Power
November, 1873. Mary Todd Lincoln is confined to the Bellevue Place Sanitarium for insanity, where she talks to the Savage Indian and the sentient Rope, and both re- minders of her husband's decision to hang thirty-eight Dakota in 1862 Mankato, the largest mass execution in United States history.
Part theater of the absurd, part highly stylized biography, part historical archive, this daring cross-genre narrative traces the limits of one woman's sanity, the betrayals of a family, and the contradictions and crimes on which the United States is founded.
From Savage Conversations
Tonight, let us hoist the catafalque over a new grave. Hold my hands above the dank earth
As the Nightjars serenade. Oh what a great heart smasher you are, Mr. Lincoln. Adieu, my
confessor, my all-in-all, lover, protector, ghost husband.
Turning to Savage Indian.
Wishing for nothing, not even breath, Take the Jlint knife, cut me, I dare you.
LeAnne Howe is a poet, fiction writer, filmmaker, and play wright and a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Her honors include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writer's Circle of the Americas, an American Book Award, and a United States Artists Ford Fellowship. She is the Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature in English at the University of Georgia.
Synopsis
THE 1862 MASS EXECUTION OF THIRTY-EIGHT DAKOTA NIGHTLY HAUNTS MARY TODD LINCOLN, INSTITUTIONALIZED AND ALONE WITH HER GHOSTS.
May 1875: Mary Todd Lincoln is addicted to opiates and tried in a Chicago court on charges of insanity. Entered into evidence is Ms. Lincoln's claim that every night a Savage Indian enters her bedroom and slashes her face and scalp. She is swiftly committed to Bellevue Place Sanitarium. Her hauntings may be a reminder that in 1862, President Lincoln ordered the hanging of thirty-eight Dakotas in the largest mass execution in United States history. No one has ever linked the two events-until now. Savage Conversations is a daring account of a former first lady and the ghosts that tormented her for the contradictions and crimes on which this nation is founded.
Synopsis
The 1862 mass execution of 38 Dakota nightly haunts Mary Todd Lincoln, institutionalized and alone with her ghosts.