Red Paint is an autobiographical memoir published by Sasha LaPointe in 2022. LaPointe hails from the Pacific Northwest as a Coast Salish writer from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes. The subtitle of the book is "The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk" and it foreshadows much of what is waiting for the reader between the covers.
The punk rock reference in the subtitle may well be a draw for some readers. Among the iconic names to be mentioned in the narrative are Joy Division, Bikini Kill, and Nirvana. LaPointe paints a portrait of a nomadic young woman desperately looking for permanence and adopting with a natural fit the persona of the outsider. It takes a certain sort of outsider moxie to toss one's bridal bouquet to the full-throated vocalizing of riot grrrl icon Kathleen Hanna singing Bikini Kill's signature anthem, "Rebel Girl."
The author's full given name in the copyright is Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe and that middle name is surely as alien and unfamiliar as much of this book's focus on the historical background of the Coast Salish tribes. Throughout the book, LaPointe draws parallels between the individual and the larger tribal experience. As the subtitle slyly insinuates, this is not just a memoir but also a biographical dive into what will surely be for the average reader a completely unfamiliar historical assessment of a little-known indigenous American tribe. Her own story is punctuated and underscored by stories about her ancestors, including what is almost a serial installment tracing the life of her own great-grandmother. Comptia Koholowish is the star of several shorter chapters which serve to become something of a little mini-biography within the larger memoir. It is through the stories of the ancestors of her tribe and the collective and unifying traumatic experience that comes with simply being an indigenous person in America that LaPointe's own personal story of surviving sexual trauma and suffering PTSD takes on a deeper meaning. While it is certainly going too far to suggest that this makes the story being told universal, it is an unfortunate and undeniable truth that many readers will relate to her horrific memory of being sexually abused by an "uncle" while she was still a pre-pubescent girl.
The key to making a story that is so very outside the mainstream relatable to a larger mainstream American audience also lies in that essential subtitle. Punk is not just a reference to a specific musical genre. As indicated, LaPointe's trek through the thriving Pacific Northwest alternative rock music scene of the 1990s allows her to take a deep dive into the cultural associations of the outsider that is punk rock's most empowering siren call. That trek into the punk subculture permeates throughout the text, but it is another pop culture reference point that LaPointe inserts into the narrative very early that may be the most effective decision she makes in an attempt to draw in readers not nearly as familiar with the "Coast Salish" part of that subtitle as they are with the "punk" part of it.
The Pacific Northwest is also integral to selling the story to a larger readership. The autobiography is replete with mentions of salmon, the author's tribal heritage, and the topography of the landscape. For many readers, their familiarity with the setting will be as limited as the author indicates when she writes, of the 1990s appointment TV cult hit Twin Peaks, "the show was heavy with dark and supernatural themes, often terrifying, and along with Nirvana, responsible for putting this rainy corner of the Pacific Northwest on the map." In a display of some kind of literary genius, LaPointe welcomes readers into her story taking place in that rainy top left corner of the continental U.S. with a multi-page rhapsody about the impact watching David Lynch's transformative TV series had on her. The contextual purpose is ultimately joined with the subtextual undertones when she asserts that the topographical features defining "the fictional town of Twin Peaks were also ominous."
It is this review of the unsettling menace and disquieting atmosphere of the show that directly leads to the centerpiece of the author's own personal traumatic story. That story of childhood sexual abuse, in turn, sets the stage for the broader overview of historical tribal trauma.
