Review

A Whirlwind Passed Through Our Country: Lakota Voices of the Ghost Dance

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by Rani-Henrik Andersson

Cover of A Whirlwind Passed Through Our Country against a white background with two small pine trees.

One of the things I loved about college and grad school was getting to take a wide variety of classes about things subjects with which I wasn’t very familiar.  One area where I’m sadly lacking is Native American history, so I started stocking up on books on the subject.  One of those was A Whirlwind Passed Through Our Country, which is a fascinating book and a great resource.

To provide a very brief and basic overview, the Ghost Dance was a religious movement that moved through a number of American Indian nations across the Great Plains/Western U.S. during the 1880s and into the first year or two of the 1890s.  In 1889, members of the Lakota sent representatives to learn more about this movement and return to teach their communities about the Dance itself and the promises of a better future. 

The Ghost Dance allowed practitioners to fall into a state in which they could visit their dead relatives, who promised them that soon the dead would return, herds of buffalo (which had largely been wiped out by White Americans) would return to the Plains, and European-Americans would be pushed off the land. 

For the Lakota, suffering from famine as a result of numerous broken treaties (including a refusal to provide promised rations of beef and other food), forced removal to poor lands, and the disappearance of their usual sources of game, such a promise was powerful. The dance spread from one Lakota reservation to the next, alarming White settlers and U.S. Indian Agents in charge of controlling the reservations.  Unwilling or unable to understand, White newspapers and government dispatches stoked fears of “Indians on the warpath.” Soon, the U.S. government dispatched more troops to the area, further inflaming the situation. This culminated in the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee, where U.S. soldiers gunned down over 250 Lakota men, women, and children.

Most of what we get in textbooks give a fairly flat view of the Ghost Dance (if it gets mentioned much at all) and most of that is from White sources.  In A Whirlwind Passed Through our Country, Andersson creates a multi-layer analysis of the Ghost Dance and how different groups of Lakota understood it, interacted with it, and modified it. And even more importantly, he does so using Lakota sources. 

Andersson’s previous book analyzed the Ghost Dance from multiple perspectives, of which the Lakota were one.  He learned to read the language and found multiple primary Lakota sources.  Not being able to use all of them in his first book, in A Whirlwind Passed Through Our Country, he provides the full published texts of a variety of Lakota individuals who had direct connections with the Ghost Dance movement. 

The book is divided into four sections.  The first deals with Lakota who were full believers in the Ghost Dance.  The second focuses on Lakota caught in between.  Some believed but then fell away; some were interested, but never fully convinced; and some saw the potential, even if they had no interest in the religious aspect.  Part three presents sources from those who did not participate in the Ghost Dance but had front-row seats to its effects on the reservation.  This includes some of the Indian police responsible for the arrest and murder of Sitting Bull.  The book concludes with the words of Lakota who converted to Christianity and had no patience for the Ghost Dance movement. 

One thing to keep in mind is that the book is organized thematically, which means each part will go back in time and re-cover previous events from a different perspective.  Likewise, within each section, he provides all of the writings of an individual and then moves on to the next person. In my opinion, it’s an effective way to present this information.  However, it can take a little getting used to if you’re used to more chronological approaches.

Andersson is also very clear that this book is about the Ghost Dance and not specifically the Wounded Knee Massacre (about which he wrote a separate book).  While some of the sources do talk about the massacre, Andersson also notes that he has left out sources that speak only about the massacre and do not discuss the Ghost Dance.  So if you’re looking for more on that subject, it looks like you’ll need to check out his other book.

Overall, this is a wonderful source for getting first-hand accounts.  Andersson does a good job providing context at the beginning of each part, introducing the writer, and explaining language differences.  The chronology in the back also can help keep dates straight as you jump back and forth between parts. 

Having so many perspectives from so many Lakota voices is important.  Andersson helps remind us that there was no one unified “Indian” perspective. Additionally, the White binary of “progressive” vs. “unprogressive” Natives is not nearly complex enough.  This book will well-serve both historians and general readers alike.

Find it here

Tender is the Flesh

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By Augustina Bazterrica. Translated by Sarah Moses.

A formally set table with candlelight and the book Tender is the Flesh standing on the plate.

“Soylent Green meets The Jungle.” If I had to describe Tender is the Flesh in five words or less, that’s how I’d do it.  (Full disclosure: I’ve never actually seen Soylent Green, but I know the gist of it.  I have read The Jungle.)

But oh boy, would it not be enough!  It would also do a great disservice for the real power of this book. 

I’ve seen other reviews highlight the first line of Tender is the Flesh, to help readers understand exactly what they’re in for.  And it’s a powerful opening:

            Carcass.  Cut in half.  Stunner.  Slaughter line.  Spray wash.

It’s going to be brutal.

In the not-to-distant future, an unknown and poorly understood virus makes animal meat deadly to eat.  One would assume such a situation would create a vegetarian or vegan world.  (It’s not clear whether it’s just animal flesh that is affected or if all animal products, like eggs and honey, are affected.  It also doesn’t matter – Tender is the Flesh isn’t concerned with the wider world and its history.) But one would be wrong.  The vast majority of the world cannot give up meat.  And so, with animals off the table, society turns to the only remaining option: humans.

Cannibalism becomes legalized.  Initially, during the “Transition,” there seems to have been a bit of a free-for-all, with the marginalized set upon and butchered without much thought.  But by the time we join this world, capitalism has reasserted itself.  The slaughterhouses of yore are repurposed for the production of “special meat.” The factory-farm system reasserts itself, raising “head” for the slaughter, milking the udders of females, inseminating them to produce the next generation of food and pumping those offspring full of growth hormones to speed up development.  There are even “organic” options – the “First Generation Pure” specimens, raised without hormones though of course, that’ll cost you more.

Our guide through this world is Marcos, a man who used to work in a regular slaughterhouse prior to the Transition and then took up the job again as the meat source changed. He currently lives alone, as his wife moved into her mother’s house after the death of their infant son. This loss haunts him as well as he attempts to move through his days, lost and alone. The funeral and burial they had for the child was performative; in this world, one may “bury” a body to continue the old traditions, but then immediately disinter and cremate it or risk their loved ones becoming a meal for the Scavengers who cannot afford to buy special meat.

Due to all he sees in his job and after the death of his son and the ailing health of his father, Marcos no longer eats meat. This makes him a bit of an object of suspicion, but the real trouble comes when he is suddenly gifted with a First Generation Pure woman for his own personal use. He could eat her, or sell her for a goodly sum. For the moment, he keeps her in his barn. Where it goes from there….well, I’m not going to spoil it.  At least not here.  Perhaps in our spoiler space.

While the opening line of the book sets the stage for the horror of the world, it’s the subsequent lines of the book that hint to the real power: language, and the power of words.  Bazterrica continues:

            These words appear in his head and strike him. Destroy him. But they’re not just words. They’re the blood, the dense smell, the automation, the absence of thought.  They burst in on the night, catch him off guard. When he wakes, his body is covered in a film of sweat because he knows that what awaits is another day of slaughtering humans. … His brain warns him that there are words that cover up the world.

            There are words that are convenient, hygienic. Legal.

Throughout the book, Bazterrica’s meditation on the importance of language, and her narrator’s recognition of the implications of the words one chooses, brings an incredible depth to this quick and relatively short novel. It was nearly impossible to put this down, but what struck me the most was this focus on language and how we use euphemisms to disguise all sorts of unpleasant truths we’d rather not face.  Translator Sarah Moses deserves a huge round of applause; I can only imagine how tricky it is to translate a work where language and word choice is so central.

Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in hopes of challenging his fellow Americans to question the capitalist system, which ground up low-wage workers and immigrants as easily as it ground up diseased meat in its slaughterhouses. But as anyone who ever read it in high school or college will likely attest, his detailed descriptions of the unsanitary methods, human body parts being ground into beef, and rats running rampant across food intended for human consumption is what grabbed attention. He later bemoaned that he “aimed for the public’s heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

Bazterrica shoots two arrows at once and hits both. Tender is the Flesh is not for the tender-hearted. Or the tender-stomached. But if you can handle it, it is an incredible tale.

Find it here

The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin

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The World We Make book in front of an iron statute of a female figure carrying a book.
Photo taken at the Cleveland Public Library

First things first: The World We Make is a sequel to The City We Became.  Highly, highly recommend you go read that if you haven’t yet.  In both books, Jemisin tackles the very real and present issues of gentrification, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, etc., but with a sci-fi/fantasy twist.  I’ll give a brief review of The City We Became, which I read a few years ago when it came out. Then I’ll jump into The World We Make.

Mini-Review: The City We Became

The City We Became book against a hazy gold background and a shadow of some kind of tentacled monster.
I took this photo ages ago and I’m not sure I could ever pull it off again.

Jemisin is the kind of author who will throw you right into the deep end. You may spend time flailing to get to the surface, but once you learn to swim, you never want to get out of the water. In this book, we learn that cities become living things, represented by human avatars. New York City is undergoing this process, but something’s different this time. Each of the boroughs must come together to protect the city.  A different person represents each borough and each has a connection to their part of the city. 

As a result, the chapters jump between the various characters’ perspectives. Manny, Manhattan’s avatar, who has lost most of his memories.  Brooklyn, who fittingly represents Brooklyn. She’s a former rapper and now a councilwoman, fighting to save her family’s brownstone. Bronca, an artist, represents the Bronx.  Pamini, a mathematician on a student visa, embodies Queens.  And from Staten Island, Aislyn.  Aside from Aislyn, all the avatars are people of color, and many are queer.  In addition to the avatars of the boroughs, there’s a primary avatar, who is missing. 

Then there is the Enemy, a force committed to city infanticide. The avatars are the only ones who can see this Enemy, but civilians are unknowingly impacted by its actions.  Despite being strangers to one another, the avatars must find each other and beat back the enemy. 

Jemisin does a great job using Manny’s amnesia to stand in for our complete loss as to what’s going on without being heavy handed about it.  Each character has such a different personality and background, yet they all feel like complete people right off the bat.  Jemisin is a master at writing stories from different perspectives.  Each time I start with one character, I don’t want their chapter to end, but by the time I start the next one’s, I’m now committed to them.  It takes a lot of skill to pull that off and Jemisin makes it look easy.    

I’ve only been to NYC once, and it was a brief trip.  I only visited Manhattan and Brooklyn, but I would love to go back for a more in-depth visit someday.  Jemisin write a fantastic love letter to the city and its people.  She doesn’t hide from the city’s struggle, but she dwells in the glory of all of its people, all their diversity, their myriad backgrounds, and their overarching identity as New Yorkers.

Ok, now on to The World We Make.

Cover of The World We Make on a stone wall with a few buildings visible through the fog.
Just a fun note, I delayed posting this review because I wanted to take the book to work with me and get some shots of it against the backdrop of downtown Cleveland (I know, definitely not New York, but this blog doesn’t make money so no travel budget). And then of course the day I went was the day it was completely covered in fog. There’s supposed to be a skyline back there.

There’s a lot I want to talk about, but I’m not sure what would count as a spoiler.  So I’m creating a World We Make spoilers page and I’ll go into some of the things there.  If you want to go into the book mostly blind, then just stay here.  But if you’ve read it or don’t mind learning more details ahead of time, check it out!

While it should probably go without saying, from here on out, there will be spoilers for The City We Became, so if you haven’t read that one yet, beware!

The book picks up pretty much right where we left everyone after The City We Became.  The borough avatars (minus traitor Staten Island, but picking up sixth borough Jersey City) along with the primary New York City avatar (going by the name Nyc, pronounced Neek) are adjusting to life as the living embodiments of a city.  While they have unique powers, they also still live their regular life.  And over all that looms the Enemy’s stronghold, hovering over Staten Island.  The Woman in White might not be able to directly enter the NYC, but the avatars (and the city) are not safe by any means. 

There are personal challenges – Brooklyn needs to save her family’s brownstone home from a tricky gentrification grab.  Manny is slowly figuring out his past, as well as struggling to figure out whether he can make a future with Nyc.  Pamini has work and visa issues, and so on and so forth.  But the bigger existential crisis is the Woman in White and the rest of the world’s avatars seeming unwillingness to address the problem. 

In this book, we branch out a bit and meet some other cities, including Tokyo and Istanbul.  We see a dead and lifeless city, a victim of the Enemy.  And we spend some more time with Aislyn and see how her deal with the devil is working. 

Current events drive the narrative of this book. (Though it should be noted that reality stole from Jemisin, as she was writing this first.)  A new mayoral candidate has appeared, claiming he will make New York great again and bring it back to “real” New Yorkers. But of course, the  so-called “real New York” he claims to represent is simply a figment of a hateful imagination.  It would be comforting to think this is simply the Woman in White’s doing but, as we know all too well, this kind of hate can thrive on its own without outside assistance. 

Overall, I thought this was very well done and I really enjoyed jumping back into this world. I appreciated the insight into why the Enemy did what it did and where it came from.  I also thought Jemisin did a great job of giving us an understanding of Aislyn without excusing or condoning her. 

Unfortunately, I felt like some of the characters got short shrift in this one.  We almost never heard from Bronca, for instance.  Overall, I felt like there was more emphasis on events rather than characters this time around, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just different.  I missed feeling as connected with everyone this time around though.  I also felt the conclusion was a bit rushed, but as I’ll discuss in the spoiler section, additional knowledge clarified why. 

All that said, this was a powerful follow-up to a fantastic concept started in the first book.  And now that both are out, you can enjoy reading them back-to-back.  And if you haven’t read any of N.K. Jemisin’s other books, I strongly recommend them all. 

Find it here

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

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Cover of The Sentence by Louise Erdirch against a bookcase.

November is Native American Heritage month, so it’s a great time to check out the plethora of amazing Indigenous authors.  I’ve written reviews on some already, and I’ll be doing more later. (There’s absolutely zero reason to limit it to a particular month!)  If you’re looking to support Native-owned businesses and get some great books by Native authors, check out Birchbark Books.  It’s an independent bookstore whose owner is Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa Indians. She is also the author of today’s feature, The Sentence. 

The Sentence is, in a sense, a ghost story. A dead customer haunts a small Minneapolis bookstore. Not just any customer, of course, but the most annoying one. Because of course that’s the kind of customer who would come back and haunt a place. Flora was a white woman who desperately wanted to be Indigenous. Tookie, a thirty-something Native American employee, tries to find out how to help Flora find peace and move on. She soon learns that Flora died while reading a particular sentence in a book. When Tookie tries to read the book herself, eerie things begin to happen to her.

Yet the ghost of a frustrating customer isn’t the only silenced voice demanding to be heard. The story begins in November 2019.  Within months, the world fractures with the outbreak of Covid-19 and the Minneapolis police’s murder of George Floyd. The ghosts of our history soon fill the homes in which people sequester and then flood the streets along with the protestors, police, and tear gas. Tragedies big and small, intimate and emblazoned on screens around the world can only be ignored at our own peril. 

I cannot praise this book highly enough.  The writing is just so damn good.  (A common feature of Erdrich’s books.) The Sentence contains commentary on race and justice (and injustice), family, history, and more, but throughout it all is the power of words. The way Tookie constantly searches for just the right word at any given moment, and Erdrich’s way of breaking them down – well, I have to let them speak for themselves. The book opens:

While in prison, I received a dictionary.  It was sent to me with a note.  This is the book I would take to a deserted island. Other books were to arrive from my teacher.  But as she had known, this one proved of endless use.  The first word I looked up was the word ‘sentence.’ I had received an impossible sentence of sixty years from the lips of a judge who believed in an afterlife.  So the word with its yawning c, belligerent little e’s, with its hissing sibilants and double n’s, this repetitive bummer of a word made of slyly stabbing letters that surrounded an isolate human t, this word was in my thoughts every moment of every day.  Without a doubt, had the dictionary not arrived, this light word that lay so heavily upon me would have crushed me, or what was left of me after the strangeness of what I’d done.

It’s the kind of writing that sends a thrill. It makes you wish you could somehow harness even a smidgen of this skill.

Setting the book in a version of her own store, The Sentence is heaven for book lovers. There are so many titles referenced, and a bibliography at the end, my to-be-read list grew another three feet. I also appreciated the feedback on how not to be that kind of customer. You know, this kind:

            ‘I could have bought in on Amazon, but I said to myself – although I live miles away, other side of St. Paul – I said to myself that I really should support the little independent bookstores. So I drove all the way here and you know it took me an hour because I-94 is down to one lane again?’

There’s a lot of little lessons on how not to be a well-meaning but cringy white liberal, something we as a group often need. 

But on a more serious note, it’s still odd to read about the early days of the pandemic and the protests. Obviously, I lived through them. Some of the scenes mirrored my own experiences – searching frantically for something I could use as a mask because we needed groceries and didn’t have delivery options set up yet, trying to figure out whether I really needed to wipe down said groceries, the sudden shrinking of the world to the walls of my home.

And then the video. The calls for mama. The increasingly desperate pleas of bystanders to stop, as George Floyd’s killer triumphantly corrupted one Black man’s symbol of protest against police brutality to take the life of another Black man. The protests. The burning of the precinct. The helicopters and the curfews and the National Guard. The weighing of the importance of being part of the protests vs. the risk of a deadly virus that thrives in close contact.

As a Minnesota native who left the state years ago, I appreciated having a first-hand account of living through it. If you’ll forgive the personal digression, it brought me back to an example of how our education shapes us, and the importance of having a variety of voices.  I remember clearly being in first grade, learning about the Civil War and being proud that my state was on the right side of that historic crucible, as though I was personally responsible for that choice.

As I got older, I learned a more complex side of that history – that during that same period, Minnesota’s treatment of the Dakota led to the largest mass execution in U.S. history. In college, I saw a photo of a lynching that occurred in Duluth during the 1920s. Throughout elementary school, I learned about the Rondo neighborhood, a Black middle-class neighborhood destroyed in the 1950s to make room for the interstate (I-94). 

More and more, I learned that while Minnesota was a great place to live and raise a family for white folks, it was a completely different story for Blacks, American Indians, Hmong, Somalis, and others. Some people might complain that this is critical race theory.  On the contrary, it’s vital to remember that there’s no simple “good vs. bad.” One can admire the ideals a state or country might have, but it’s imperative to also recognize its flaws. Life is complicated; history is complicated.  Good and bad can co-exist in an identity and it is our job to recognize both and everything in between. The ghosts of our history can guide us, not haunt us.

If we listen to them.

Once The Sentence reaches May 2020, sections are labeled by day: May 25, May 30, May 31.  And then May 32, May 34.  It’s an encapsulation of how that monumental month stretched past our usual boundaries. Life couldn’t simply keep going on as it always had. It didn’t stop, but it was not the same.

Some things in life are just that powerful.  A disease. A video. A murder.

A sentence. 

Find it here.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

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Book cover of What Moves the Dead in shadow, with green vines reaching out from behind

I’ve written before about how much I love Kingfisher’s books, and this is another example of why.  What Moves the Dead is a little different from her other books. It’s a take on an existing story, but Kingfisher makes it her own. The result is a creepy, quick tale, perfect for October reading. 

What Moves the Dead is Kingfisher’s retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Fall of the House of Usher.  Our narrator is Alex Easton, a sworn soldier from the (fictitious) country of Gallacia.  They have rushed back to the House of Usher upon receipt of a letter from Roderick Usher.  Roderick’s sister, Madeline, is near death.  Alex’s long history of friendship with both the Ushers, and service with Roderick during the recent war, spurs them to return, in hopes of at least providing moral comfort for their friends during this time of illness. 

But even before reaching the formidable estate, a pervasive sense of rot and contagion oozes through the grounds. The curious spread of all matter of fungi is one manifestation of this miasma.  Among the mushrooms, Alex meets Miss Eugeina Potter, an amateur mycologist. (Amateur only due to the Royal Academy’s shortsightedness regarding sex.) The mysterious presence of mushrooms normally never found in European climates fascinates her.  Alex leaves her to her studies and makes it to the manor. 

The worn and wan appearance of both Roderick and Madeline shocks them.  An American doctor is also staying at the house, but he is just as bewildered as Alex by whatever is destroying the Ushers.  Nor is the strangeness limited to the siblings.  The very house seems possessed.  Townsfolk tell tales of rabbits behaving in odd and unnatural ways, which Alex will come to see for themself.  And in the dark, the lake glows with an eerie bioluminescence, reminding those present that there is more to the House of Usher than meets the eye. 

While I had a passing knowledge of The Fall of the House of Usher before reading this, I didn’t know much.  (Ok, ok, basically my only knowledge was watching the house explode as a two-second gag on the Simpsons.) Before writing this post, I quickly read through Poe’s version to have a point of comparison, though I have no intention of writing an English lit essay on it.  (Sorry if that’s what brought you here.  My only suggestion is to find a different thesis than “What Moves the Dead and The Fall of the House of Usher have many similarities and differences.  In this essay, I will…”)

The takeaway is that Kingfisher once again brings an extraordinary amount of life, history, and character to each of the people we meet (and Alex’s horse, Hob, to boot).  Despite its brevity, there’s no skimping on the details that make each of these people who they are, quickly making us very concerned about what is happening to them – and what may be lurking in the darkness for them.  The sense of unease is omnipresent; when a character makes you laugh, it’s like laughing in a graveyard – unexpected and quickly clamped down before it calls unwanted attention to your presence.  I loved it all. 

As I read, the story kept reminding me of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s fantastic gothic horror novel Mexican Gothic.  Thus it delighted me to see it listed as an influence in the afterword.  If you haven’t read Mexican Gothic, check that one out after this (and then keep reading both authors’ other books). 

I also really appreciated Kingfisher’s deftly woven grammar lesson early in the book.  As you may have noticed, Alex is non-binary and while I have been using they/them pronouns in this review, Alex explains that Gallacia has numerous pronouns and sworn soldiers get their own dedicated pronouns of ka/kan. I won’t presume to be better at explaining the grammar better than the author, so I’ll let you discover that yourself.  I will say that if my own grammar textbooks had been even half as entertainingly informative, I wouldn’t be spending most of my editing time painstakingly transforming instances of passive voice. 

So whether or not you’ve read the Poe version, do yourself a favor and pick up What Moves the Dead.  Then keep an eye on the rabbits around you…

Find it online here