Even as we breathe A novel

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Book - 2020

"Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing and he finds himself accused of abduction and murder. Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divid...es. After leaving the seclusion of the Cherokee reservation, he is able to explore a future free from the consequences of his family's choices and to construct a new worldview, for a time. However, prejudice and persecution in the white world of the resort eventually compel Cowney to free himself from larger forces that hold him back as he struggles to unearth evidence of his innocence and clear his name"--

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FICTION/Clapsadd Annette
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Location Call Number   Status
1st Floor FICTION/Clapsadd Annette Due Jan 2, 2025
Subjects
Genres
Thrillers (Fiction)
Published
Lexington, Kentucky : Fireside Industries Books, and imprint of the University Press of Kentucky [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle (author)
Physical Description
231 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781950564064
  • 0. Prologue
  • 0. Bones
  • 0. Chapter One
  • 0. Chapter Two
  • 0. Chapter Three
  • 0. Chapter Four
  • 0. Chapter Five
  • 0. Chapter Six
  • 0. Chapter Seven
  • 0. Chapter Eight
  • 0. Chapter Nine
  • 0. Chapter Ten
  • 0. Chapter Eleven
  • 0. Stains
  • 0. Chapter Twelve
  • 0. Chapter Thirteen
  • 0. Chapter Fourteen
  • 0. Chapter Fifteen
  • 0. Chapter Sixteen
  • 0. Chapter Seventeen
  • 0. Chapter Eighteen
  • 0. Chapter Nineteen
  • 0. Chapter Twenty
  • 0. Chapter Twenty-One
  • 0. Chapter Twenty-Two
  • 0. Chapter Twenty-Three
  • 0. Chapter Twenty-Four
  • 0. Acknowledgements
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Clapsaddle's lush debut thrusts 19-year-old Cowney Sequoyah into WWII intrigue. In 1942, Cowney leaves his home on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina for a groundskeeping job at Asheville's Grove Park Inn and Resort, which is being used by the government to intern enemy diplomats and their families. On the grounds, he uncovers a mysterious, human-looking bone, which he shows only to fellow Cherokee Essie Stomper, whom he falls for. Essie doesn't share Cowney's feelings, however, and embarks on a forbidden affair with Andrea, an Italian "guest." Meanwhile, Cowney keeps quiet with his family about his doubts over the sketchy details shared with him about his father's death by the Germans following Armistice Day. After a diplomat's young child goes missing, and Essie, sure Cowney told their boss about her relationship with Andrea, tells the soldiers guarding the resort about the bone Cowney has been holding onto. A colonel confiscates the bone, which he takes to be a sign of Cowney's evil nature and casts him under suspicion ("I know you people do all kinds of godforsaken things"). The clear, crisp prose hums consistently as the intricate story easily moves along and new details about Cowney's family's past emerge. Both an astonishing addition to WWII and Native American literature, this novel sings on every level. (Sept.)

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up--It is 1942 and 19-year-old Cowney is adrift. He can't enlist in the army due to a physical disability, he left junior college and hasn't decided whether he's going back, and he feels out of place at home on the Qualla Boundary and outside the reservation where racism runs rampant. Needing money for tuition, and wanting to prove himself useful to the war effort, Cowney takes a groundskeeper position at the Grove Park Inn. Although they are still referred to as "guests," the residents of the Inn are not tourists or vacationers, they are diplomats and other high-class POWs. Working at the Inn throws issues of class, race, and ableism into stark relief for Cowney, whose introspective nature lends itself to observation and insight into the world around him. Tragedies strike fast and thick throughout the summer, and when a child goes missing, suspicion falls on Cowney. A tangled and intricate plot unrolls with exquisite slowness, and Clapsaddle portrays the smoke-filled forests of Cowney's home with stunning sensory detail; things that were once familiar take on a newly sinister cast in the haze. Clapsaddle's debut is a lyrical and moving period piece that is both evocative of the WWII home front and resonant with today. The novel takes on familiar coming-of-age tropes and adds an incisive #OwnVoices edge. VERDICT This is the first novel published by an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), and Clapsaddle adds a vivid voice to the fiction of Appalachia. A first purchase for all high school and public libraries.--Heather Waddell, Sargent Memorial Lib., Boxborough, MA

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