Book Review: Gilded, How Newport Became America's Richest Resort

Read a review of Gilded on Cross Reference, my book review blog.

Book Review: Street Gang, The Complete History of Sesame Street

Read a review of Street Gang at Cross Reference the Book Review Blog.

Book Review: The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton as completed by Marion Mainwaring

Read a review of the posthumously published Edith Wharton novel The Buccaneers at Cross Reference.

Native American Heritage Day

Here in the US, November is Native American Heritage Month, and, last year, the government proclaimed the day after Thanksgiving as Native American Heritage Day. Those of you who know me or have followed this blog from its beginnings are aware how strongly I feel about how little most US citizens know about the descendants of the first inhabitants of our continent. Among most of us American Indians are seen, at worst, as just another ethnic group trying to get an underserved leg up on the white population, and, at best, as a quaint relic of our nation's past. Native American issues receive scant (and usually no) coverage in the media except for local outrage when a nearby tribe has applied for federal recognition and/or expresses an interest in starting a new gaming operation.

Last November I recommended some fiction by Native American Writers. This year I'd like to recommend some nonfiction, but first a little quiz. These questions and answers are based on Journey to Understanding, An Introduction to North Dakota Tribes, compiled and distributed by the North Dakota Department of Human Services, a copy of which I received a couple years ago on a trip with the American Indian College Fund and which used to be available on the department website, but I can't find it there now, and The Rights of Indians and Indian Tribes by Stephen L. Pevar, New York University Press, 2004. See the bottom of this post for correct answers.

Quiz

1. Indian Reservations represent tracts of land that were given to tribes by the US Government. True or False
2. Who holds the most power in regulating Indian affairs? a) The tribal government b) The governor of the state in which the tribe is located c) The president of the US d) The US Congress
3. Most members of federally recognized tribes living on reservations require approval from the federal government before selling, leasing, or willing their land to another individual or company. True or False
4. Are tribal powers limited by the US Constitution? Yes or No
5. American Indians don't pay income tax. True or False

See answers at the end of the post.

Recommended Readings

The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty

This tells the story of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), part of FDR's New Deal and also gives a good overview of where American Indian tribes stand viz a viz the US Government.

Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands and How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier

If you still labor under the misconception that American Indians were militarily defeated and that is how they lost most of their land, these two books may surprise you.

Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee

If what you know about AIM comes from books like In the Spirit of Crazy Horse or documentaries like Incident at Oglala, on this 40th anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz you may be surprised at the student movement origins of the fight for American Indian rights.

Po'pay: Leader of the First American Revolution

If you think American Indian history is a history of victimhood or that Indians were just a bunch of primitive hunter/gatherers waiting for the superior European machine to roll over them, you need to read about the Pueblo Revolt in the 17th century when the Pueblo Indians overthrew Spanish rule and held them off for more than a decade.

Warpath: The True Story of the Fighting Sioux Told in a Biography of Chief White Bull (Bison Book)

If you think of American Indians as those austere and stately individuals staring out from old photographs I highly recommend this depiction of the everyday life of a plains warrior, including plenty of humor.

Again, this just scrapes the surface of my too-many-to-count library, but it's a start.

And now for the answers

1. False, reservations were not "given" to Indians by the government, the land was theirs to begin with and reservations represent the only parts not ceded.
2. The US Congress holds plenary power over Indian tribes including the right to terminate the tribe or all tribes as they attempted to do in the 1950s.
3. This is true in that under the Dawes Act of 1887 that divided communal reservation land into individual allotments, and later under the Indian Reorganization Act, most reservation land as well as much of the property of individual Indians is held in trust for them by the Federal Government. One benefit is that the land cannot be lost for taxes as occurred quite frequently before the IRA was passed, partly to remedy that situation. However, unlike the rest of us, individual Indians must gain the approval of the US government as trustee for transfers of trust land, which, as you can imagine, can get pretty cumbersome. Also, the government, as trustee, holds lease income in trust, the accounting of which has been badly bungled, leading to the Cobell case.
4. No. Indian tribes are sovereign nations and as such, for the most part, tribal powers are not limited by the Constitution, however they can and have been limited by Congress, which, as noted in #2, holds plenary power over Indian tribes.
5. False. This is a common misconception. Tribal businesses, such as casinos, run for the benefit of the tribe, do not pay federal taxes, just as states do not pay federal taxes. Individual Indians are subject to income tax like anyone else. Individual American Indians do not pay state or local taxes because Indian tribes have a government-to-government relationship with the US Government, just as states do.

I hope these questions and their answers will whet your appetite to learn more. American Indians are not just another ethnic group. Tribes are sovereign nations within the US which puts them somewhere between a foreign nation and a state. If you don't quite grasp that, you are not alone. What exactly that means is constantly evolving, and not always to the benefit of Indian nations.

Read and Submit Your Favorite Reviews

This is a great site brought to my attention by John Gorman author of Shades of Luz. Reviewers, authors, and readers (with permission) may submit one review per month. The nice thing is it gives books published by smaller presses a chance. For example, you'll find reviews of poetry chapbooks. While I usually prefer sites that link back to read the entire article, in the case of reviews by small presses and self-published authors, the more publicity the better. If readers prefer going to one site for their reviews, it's better than not reading them at all. Plus reviews do include a link to your site, so they make a good introduction.

Book Review: John Gorman's Shades of Luz

Read a review of John Gorman's debut novel Shades of Luz on Cross-Reference.

Book Review: Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs

Read a review of Lorrie Moore's newest novel A Gate at the Stairs on Cross Reference.

Book Review: Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform

You can read a review of this book on Cross Reference, the book review blog.

Book Review: The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

Read a review of The Power of the Dog on Cross Reference

Book Review: Brooklyn

Read a review of Colm Toibin's newest novel, Brookyn, on Cross Reference.

Book Review: Tender Graces by Kathryn Magendie

Read a review (finally) of Kathryn Magendie's Tender Graces on Cross Reference.

Tender Graces: It's Out

Hey zine writer followers, my friend Kat Magendie's first novel Tender Graces is out. You can click on it in my sidebar to order. I promise a full-blown review. Unfortunately life has a way of exploding and my father went into the hospital and now rehab just when my copy arrived in the mail. It's so annoying, because it is really the kind of book you hate to put down only I have to in order to meet my many obligations and in the evening I often just fall asleep as soon as I hit the bed, which is where I do most of my reading.

If this weren't a writing blog, I'd post on the horrors of our healthcare system, which I knew only too well already, but of which the fates still feel the need to remind me every couple of years  in the form of an elderly relative or two or three being hospitalized. Mr. Obama please help.

Anyway, instead of a post of my whining go read Kat's post about the joys of finally having a real live book she can hold in her hands.

Love and many sales, Kat. You deserve it.

Oh, and I hope you were all good little boys and girls and watched We Shall Remain last night on PBS as I assigned you to do. Next week is Tecumseh. I already saw that one and it's great.

Book Review: Dreams from the Monster Factory by Sunny Schwartz & David Boodell

Read a review of Dreams from the Monster Factory on Cross Reference.

Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise by Tavis Smiley and Stephanie Robinson

Read a review of Accountable on Cross Reference.

Book Review: Ablutions, Notes for a Novel by Patrick deWitt

Read a review of Ablutions to be released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on February 18, 2009 on my Cross Reference Blog.

Valeria's Last Stand: A Novel by Marc Fenton

Read an advance review of Valeria's Last Stand, a novel by Marc Fenton, current Editor of The Chattahoochee Review on Nannette' book review blog Cross Reference.

Book Review: Running Alone in photographs by Robert Mirabal

You can read my recent review of Robert Mirabal's Running Alone in photographs on
Cross Reference: A Book Review Blog.

Edgar Allan Poe: Happy 200th Birthday

The 19th of January marks Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday.

I always name Ernest Hemingway as the first writer who enthralled me with his prose, but that isn't completely true. Hemingway is the first among writers I read on my own. However, the first time I lost myself in a writer's words was when my fourth grade teacher read aloud certain stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

On learning this my aunt––childless and for that reason far more indulgent than my parents––took me out for my birthday and bought me the Modern Library Edition of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. The year was 1963. I know because I just now checked the inscription.

I'm sure I don't need to list for you the stories our teacher read and which I and most others associate with Poe: The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart (which is still my favorite first line in any story I've read, "True!––nervous––very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say I am mad?"); and what are considered the first detective stories like The Murders in the Rue Morgue or The Purloined Letter.

Yet the first story in the collection was one I hadn't heard of, The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall. The story is about a man who constructs a balloon and travels to the moon, returning five years later. It ran about 40 pages, which was way too long for me, and it wasn't at all scary. In fact, at age 10, I found it boring. So I skipped it, and put it out of my mind for years like all the other stories and essays that didn't fit into Poe's dark and what many assume to be his signature style.

A few years ago I was inspired to attack that collection again. This time starting at the beginning and continuing, intermittently, through to the end. When I approached Hans Pfaal in my middle years, I understood it a lot better and found myself laughing out loud, something that surprised my husband when he saw what I was reading. In fact, Poe was much more than the writer of the horror/detective fiction or the dark poems he is always identified with now. Much of his work is very humorous satire like The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq and Never Bet the Devil Your Head to name just a very few.

He is also known for his criticism. His Criticism of Hawthorne's Twice- Told Tales
is a treatise on the short form still read today in many writing workshops. It includes the "single effect theory" and some words I often think of when reading current work in the "literary genres."

It may be added, here…that the author who aims at the purely beautiful in a prose tale is laboring at great disadvantage. For Beauty can be better treated in the poem. Not so with terror, or passion, or horror, or a multitude of such other points.

I don't need to mention that Poe wrote some beautiful poetry, much of it in the classic style. But my collection also includes an unfinished drama, "Politician."

So, in honor of Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday, why not pick up a collection of his work. It is still fun to re-read the classics with which we are all so familiar, but you may be very surprised at what else you find.

Happy 200th Edgar Allan Poe

Book Review: Failures of the Presidents

Read a review of

Failure of the Presidents

on

Cross Reference

Native American Heritage Month: Read a Book

November is Native American Heritage Month. Chances are you don't know about this, or if you do, maybe it's because your local PBS station is showing Dances with Wolves or perhaps a Native American dance troupe will be performing somewhere in your area. There's nothing wrong with either of these. DWW was innovative for its time in that all the American Indian parts were played by American Indians, and Indian dance is both beautiful and physically demanding. The problem is, that's where it usually ends for most of us who still see Native Americans as part of our country's past, but never bother to learn anything about them in the present.

In fact, the native nations across this country comprise thriving, intellectual, cultural, and political communities. Several years ago when I asked a historian friend to recommend books that would provide a good idea of current Native American issues, he told me, read the fiction. So, this being a writing/reading blog, what is more appropriate than to make some book recommendations.

If you haven't yet sampled Native American Literature I think you are in for a treat. Like other cultures with an oral tradition, story telling is an art, and this art transfers well to the written page. You may be familiar with Sherman Alexie or Louise Erdrich, but there are many other fine writers and books I can recommend.

I'll start with, Reckonings, Contemporary Short Fiction by Native American Women. I reviewed this for Roses & Thorns and am linking to it on my book review blog, Cross Reference. This will give you a good sampling of some of the best writing including Joy Harjo and the late Paula Gunn Allen. Two older books that still capture well the essence of Indian-white relations are by D'Arcy McNickle. They are The Surrounded and Wind From An Enemy Sky. You may be familiar with James Welch's The Heartsong of Charging Elk, which, actually, was not one of my favorites, but I suggest you try The Death of Jim Loney, a book that, at just 179 pages, packs a huge wallop. Then there's Adrian C. Louis's Skins, a tragicomic tale set on the Pine Ridge Reservation, that was made into a movie by director, Chris Eyre.

Obviously, I could go on and on, but I think that's enough to start. I also have probably hundreds of nonfiction books in my library that I would be happy to recommend if you could narrow down your topic of interest. Just contact me.

To order any of these books from Amazon or to make your own recommendations, see Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with These Books on Cross Reference. And consider clicking on the logo to become a Modern Day Warrior. If you aren't quite sure you are up for that, at least exlore the NARF site and learn about how the fight the good fight.