Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Filmmaker and novelist Sayles (Jamie McGillivray) offers an electrifying and convincing chronicle of resistance among Indigenous students at the Carlisle Industrial School in 1890. Antoine LaMere travels from Wisconsin to the school in southern Pennsylvania, where he joins fellow students Herbert Sweetcorn, the restless son of an 1860s war chief; Clarence Regal, a master sergeant in the school's military training program who appears to be a model example of a Westernized Indian but who sees himself as a spy in the white man's world; Wilma Pretty Weasel, who becomes pregnant by Sweetcorn; Makes-Trouble-in-Front, who fails to assimilate; and Grace Metoxen, a young woman with whom Antoine falls in love. Many are galvanized by rumors of the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement predicting the end of the white man's reign and the triumph of Indigenous culture, and pledge to keep their culture alive despite the school's mission to "kill the Indian" in them. Sayles constructs his story masterfully, weaving together the disparate motivations of his characters--from the homesick students to their Indigenous teachers and the well-meaning but misguided white administrators who see their reeducation policies as more humane than outright genocide. Readers will carry this with them for a long time. Agent: Anthony Arnove, Roam Agency. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Filmmaker and author Sayles's (Jamie MacGillivray) new novel, set in the 1890--91 academic year at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, focuses on Captain Pratt (source of "kill the Indian, save the man"), Indigenous students at the school, and figures in between--such as Miss Redbird, a former Carlisle student who has become an instructor. In a multiperspective narrative, Sayles addresses the cultural genocide inflicted at Carlisle, as well as varying points of view about what white settlers call "the Indian problem" and local rumors of an impending Ghost Dance. The rumors stir anxieties among the white settlers; the Ghost Dance purportedly has the power to return slain buffalo to their lands, destroy all white people in flood or fire, and raise the Indigenous dead. In response, federal troops are deployed onto Lakota land, and news returns of the murder of Sitting Bull by Indigenous police working for the federal government, followed by the massacre at Wounded Knee. This particularly cinematic narrative experience, purposely jarring, joins the experiences of Indigenous characters with troubling perspectives of the government and those who did its bidding. VERDICT Culturally sensitive and impressive storytelling resonates alongside disconcerting points of view of those claiming to help children. Recommended for fans of David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon.--Julie Kane
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A portrait of anti--Native American racism in education and on the battlefield. The latest historical novel by author-director Sayles takes its title from a statement by Richard Henry Pratt, an Army captain who in 1879 founded the Carlisle School to force Native Americans to assimilate: "To save the man, we must kill the Indian!" Set across four months in 1890, the novel closely follows Pratt, Carlisle teachers, and about a half-dozen students forced to attend. Among them are Antoine, a half-Ojibwe boy who's compelled to memorize Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha"; Trouble, a Sioux whose desperation moves him to attempt an escape; and Asa, a Papago assigned to sweatshop labor making shoes. Such degradations, from Pratt's perspective, were progressive compared to the forces calling for the extermination of Native Americans. But his sanctimony blinds him to the Natives' despair. The crisis at Carlisle is timed around the December massacre at Wounded Knee, which occurred after a U.S. soldier killed the Lakota chief Sitting Bull; one of Pratt's lieutenants arrives to witness the fighting. Sayles, who has no Native background, is careful not to reduce his characters to types or be melodramatically damning of the Carlisle. But it's clear that the idea of compelling various tribes--each with their own languages and folkways--to convert to white folkways was cruel, both emotionally and physically. (Students are detained, attempt suicide, and die for lack of immunity from diseases.) The Wounded Knee sections are imperfectly woven around the Carlisle sections, as if the book were separate novels. But in both plotlines, a racist urge to harm obtains. Pratt proclaims: "Our mission at the Carlisle School is to baptize the Indian youth in the waters of civilization--and to hold him under until he is thoroughly soaked!" (Or drowned.) A well-researched study of state-sanctioned bigotry. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
