The missing morningstar And other stories

Denetsosie, author and citizen of the Navajo Nation, presents this collection of eight short stories exploring the Diné experience. Denetsosie delves into the complex conflict between gradual cultural assimilation and a deep sense of pride in ancestral heritage, tradition, and connection to the land. Additionally, she addresses the pressing issue of missing Indigenous women and the lasting effects of settler colonialism in the Southwest. With each story, readers breathe in characters' experience, witnesses to the moment. "Reservation State of Mind" and "Conception" touch upon the conflict between the traditions of Diné culture and the desire to break free from them. In "The Casket in the Backseat" and "Snow Bath Season," Denetsosie captures the supernatural and spiritual aspects of discussing departed loved ones, exploring themes of grief and remembrance. "Wool Dolls," "Under the Porchway," and "The Missing Morningstar" exemplify the differing degrees of violence endured by Indigenous women. Through these narratives, Denetsosie skillfully enlightens readers about the Diné experience, offering a deeper understanding and awareness.

Denetsosie debuts with a bracing and poignant collection portraying the rugged lives of her Diné characters and their complex family bonds. The title story concerns the aftermath of powwow beauty queen Charmaine's abduction. The unnamed teen narrator, who identifies as dilbáá or "masculine female," recounts Charmaine's exploration of her queer sexuality on the powwow circuit and the false rumors of her promiscuity with men, and describes how Charmaine's disappearance calls up memories of a previous abduction in their community ("All we had were flashlights, Facebook shares, and ceremony"). "The Casket in the Backseat" finds a teenager named Leo haunted by the ghost of his recently deceased Grandpa Clyde, who wants to reconcile with Leo's mother after he regularly left her as a child to visit his other family in a different town. The narrator of "Conception" elicits disapproval from her family after marrying a white man instead of her sweetheart from the reservation ("I remember the crease in my aunt's brow as she asked if I planned to enroll my non-existent future baby into the Navajo Nation"). Some stories truncate suddenly, just as they seem to be getting off the ground, but Denetsosie soars when depicting the characters' close relationships with one another. It's a potent display of modern Navajo life. (Sept.)

A collection of stories that examine coming of age, family, and Diné life. The book opens with "Dormant," in which 17-year-old Bernadine becomes involved in a relationship with 24-year-old Aaron after helping him rescue an abandoned kitten. Bernadine considers her mother's choice in men who are always "jailbirds" and what her future might look like with Aaron, a white man. "Interracial couples always had a hard time on the reservation, especially when the woman was Navajo," she notes. This theme of the expectations imposed on Navajo women recurs several times; the stories look closely at the connections between self and community and also provide a view of reservation life and traditions. In "The Casket in the Backseat," a man gets a ride from a hearse and discovers his grandfather's spirit is trapped in the casket. In "Snow Bath Season," a dead mother speaks to her daughter through Amazon's Alexa. In the title story, a teen witnesses the disappearance of Miss Northwestern Arizona. These ingenious tales are rangy in their scope and form. "Under the Porchway" is notable for the way it interweaves plot with instructions for how to butcher a sheep. The author's sharp prose is amplified by extraordinary similes such as "roots clenched into the earth like wiry brown fists" and "veins clung in clusters beneath the skin of their hands like turquoise squash blossoms." Not only are the metaphors and similes surprising, but the turns within each story are as well. Just when it feels like a plot might move into a familiar trope, it upends itself in the best way. The stories don't provide tidy resolutions, but they reveal essential truths about the continued effects of colonization on Indigenous people, including the lack of resources on tribal lands, ongoing mental health and substance abuse crises, violence against women, and Indigenous women going missing. Propulsive and complex, this is a gorgeously written debut. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.