Synopses & Reviews
The best stories create traditions, and this novel by celebrated Native American writer Gerald Vizenor is a marvelous conjunction of trickster stories and literary ingenuity.
Chair of Tears is funny, fierce, ironic, and deadly serious, a sendup of sacred poses, cultural pretensions, and familiar places from reservations to universities. The novel begins with generous stories about Captain Eighty, his young wife, the poker-playing genius named Quiver, and their children and grandchildren who live on a rustic houseboat.
Captain Shammer, an extraordinary grandson reared on the houseboat and with no formal education, is appointed the chairman of a troubled Department of Native American Indian Studies at a prominent university. Shammer is a natural enterpriser and ironic showman in the tradition of trickster stories. He arrives at the first faculty meeting dressed in the uniform of Gen. George Armstrong Custer. Native students celebrate his conversion of the department into an academic poker parlor and casino, and a panic radio station. The most sensational enterprise is the training of service mongrels to detect the absence of irony.
An irresistible novel of original ideas, Chair of Tears gets to the heart of questions about identity politics, multiculturalism, pedantry, and timely virtues.
Review
"A lively, heartfelt novel. . . . [The Sacred White Turkey is] a charming, plainspoken tale of two people who have only each other until a bird gives them the courage to battle the forces of corruption and evil."—Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly
Review
"Washburn's novel examines contemporary and traditional life on the Pine Ridge Reservation and finds spirituality, chicanery, humor, and wisdom. . . . The Sacred White Turkey brings voice to a community and reveals its characters beautifully. Captivating."—Heather Paulson, Booklist Heather Paulson
Review
"This book has a Barbara Kingsolver feel to it. I like how Washburn skillfully weaves Catholic, Lakota, and pragmatic notions about belief together into a pastiche that seems real to me. I highly recommend this book."—Herb Thompson, Southwestern American Literature Booklist
Review
"While granting readers the pleasure of a good old-fashioned mystery, the real delight in Frances Washburn's The Sacred White Turkey is how it immerses us in a world without the binaries and categorization so common in literature dealing with race."—Peter Grandbois, Rain Taxi Herb Thompson - Southwestern American Literature
Review
"An intriguing, fun, and intelligent read."—Publishers Weekly
Review
"Chair of Tears is challengingly innovative and comfortingly familiar, satirically biting and laugh-out-loud funny."—Debroah L. Madsen, Studies in American Indian Literatures
Review
"In Chair of Tears Gerald Vizenor hands us a pitch-perfect send-up not only of Native American studies departments but of academia in general, the gaming industry and the publishing business."—Holly Carver, Wapsipinicon Almanac
Review
"In a mesmerizing story that unfolds at a leisurely pace. Vivian deftly illustrates the fragility of life and the consuming nature of loss. Readers who enjoy literary fiction that delves into the nuances of the human psyche will want to read this novel."—Library Journal Review
Review
“Robert Vivians new gorgeous, haunting novel—so lyrical, precise, and finely wrought—takes us deep into the secret recesses of human life in Dark Vespers, Nebraska, exploring with both grace and power what it is that we can and cannot truly know about one another.”—Richard McCann, author of Mother of Sorrows
Synopsis
There is nothing particularly noteworthy about an Easter turkey. But when the turkey is stark white and appears on Easter Sunday on the doorstep of a Lakota medicine woman and her teenage granddaughter, it is clearly out of the ordinary. Taking turns, Stella and her grandmother, Hazel Latour, tell the story of what follows as the mysterious turkey stirs up discord on the reservation, where some greet it as wakan, holy and sacred because of its coloring and timing, and others dismiss it as inexplicable but unimportant, while a less reputable local healer views it as a clear challenge to his standing. A tour de force of storytelling, The Sacred White Turkey is at once remarkably entertaining, rich with suspense and humor, and deeply philosophical, exploring questions of spirituality and power, abuse and trickery, all within a framework that embraces both Native and Catholic traditions. As the Latours find themselves the target of escalating violence, embroiled in a BIA leasing scandal, and witnesses to a turkey crucifixion, readers will find themselves thoroughly engaged in the unfolding mystery and meaning of the sacred white turkey.
Synopsis
Its been a year since the body of seventeen-year-old Kelsey Little was found in the river outside Dark Vespers, Nebraska. Although the town may have reached an uneasy equilibrium, those who loved her most have certainly not: Javier Martinez, her troubled ex-boyfriend and the father of the child no one knew she was carrying; Sam and Hank, her parents, whose marriage is coming apart under the pressure of grief and not-knowing; and Ike Parrish, a reclusive eccentric whose clairvoyant “river spells” compel him to come forward with information about Kelseys disappearance and death.
A prismatic look at the impact of loss on individual lives, Water and Abandon tells the moving and paradoxical story of those brought together by the very thing that tears them apart. Haunted by Kelseys death, each struggles with his or her own demons of blame and guilt, despair and fury—until one, in a confusion of pain, grief, and unrequited love, decides to do something dire. As deeply felt as it is finely crafted, the novel confirms Robert Vivians place among the most interesting fiction writers of our day.
About the Author
Robert Vivian is a professor of English and creative writing at Alma College in Michigan and a core faculty member in the low-residency MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the author of, most recently,
The Least Cricket of Evening and the Tall Grass Trilogy, which includes
The Mover of Bones,
Lamb Bright Saviors, and
Another Burning Kingdom, all available from the University of Nebraska Press.