Sydney Reads and Reads: November

When choosing our book for November, my book club decided to select a title by a Native author. Since I'm a big mood reader, and I've been pushing myself to read more stories outside of my own lived experience, I decided to read titles by Native authors all month. 

Though part of me was excited by this idea, another part put up some resistance. After taking some time to consider this more deeply, I realized the resistance I felt came from the story I was telling myself. A story that said books outside my lived experience were harder to read, or I wouldn't enjoy them on the same level as others—a story built on the foundations of the institutional racism of American history and culture. 

Admitting this didn't make it go away. Still, it gave me greater self-awareness and the ability to acknowledge those thoughts so I could enjoy and learn from what I was reading, interrupting the toxic cycle I was perpetuating.

I'm so pleased Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, by Joy Harjo, and the accompanying essays were the first thing I read this month. Much of what I learned from her writing, and the conversations surrounding her work, including the history of substance abuse and generational trauma, directly influenced my experience of the titles to follow.

To be a witness to the character Redbird, as she moves through the semi-autobiographical story of Joy's life was a gift. The poetry and music woven throughout allowed my imagination to run wild, opening me to greater empathy.

I'm infinitely grateful to the women in my book club for choosing this title and for bringing their unique and critical eye to our meetings month after month.

My favorite book of the month was hands down Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann. After discovering oil-rich mineral deposits below the seemingly useless land granted to them by the United States government, by the 1920s, the wealthiest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma.

When one by one, members of the Nation start to be killed off, a young J. Edgar Hoover sends a former Texas Ranger to root out corruption in the investigation and get to the bottom of the mystery. But it turns out, even he and his investigators aren't safe.

I don't always enjoy stories that switch narrators or jump perspectives. Still, I found the intertwining narratives of the Osage Nation and the FBI, specifically those of the Burkhardt family and Tom White, incredibly effective. Both as entertainment and as a way to drive the pace of the story. I'm also grateful to Grann's work for giving me another entry point to continue my education on contemporary Native American life. Needless to say, Killers of the Flower Moon will be at the top of my nonfiction recs for years to come.

There, There, by Tommy Orange, was all the rage on bookstagram a few years ago, but at the time, I was just not interested. Though it took dedicating myself to a month of Native stories to pique my interest, I'm happy I read it, and that's sort of the point of this whole exercise, right?

Following twelve, you read that right, twelve, different characters from various Native communities as they each work their way toward attending the Big Oakland Powwow, There, There can at times feel a little confusing and unwieldy. But with each chapter, whether it follows someone coping with their Native identity, or someone newly sober trying to earn their way back into their family, each chapter draws you in deeper and bringing you toward a genuinely jaw-dropping conclusion.

The most enriching part of There, There for me was getting twelve different perspectives on what it's like to be Native in modern-day America; how each character handled the joy, trauma, identity, and everything else that comes with their tribe's culture. Triggers abound in this book, but if you prepare yourself for them, I would give There, There my wholehearted recommendation.

Determined to round out the month with at least four titles, I scoured lists of contemporary fiction by Native authors, compared them to what was immediately available from my library, and landed on Cherokee America, by Margaret Verble.

When a baby, a black hired hand, a bay horse, a gun, a gold stash, and a preacher all go missing, it falls to matriarch Cherokee "Check" America Singer, a wealthy farmer, mother to five boys, and soon to be widow to sort it all out. And that's really just the beginning.

Set in Cherokee Nation West in 1875, just after the civil war, at times, Cherokee America, felt like I was reading two different books. One, a family drama, coping with the passing of a patriarch, the other, a wild west adventure tale, which was at times a little jarring and took me out of the story. Reflecting on it, though, perhaps that's what life was like living as a Cherokee woman in a mixed-race family on the prairie? One minute you're nursing your husband through the last days of his life, the next you're off scouring the prairie for a lost neighbor? Something to consider.

I'm glad I read Cherokee America, but I can't say I would jump to recommend it to others.

How do you feel when you approach stories outside of your lived experience? Do you have any of the same thoughts and feelings that I do? If so, how do you deal with them? I'd love to hear from you. - xo Sydney