Sasha LaPointe
Sasha LaPointe is the author of this autobiographical memoir. She is a writer and member of the Coast Salish group of various indigenous tribes in the region which share languages and cultures. Her writing has been published in a various periodicals including The Portland Review and Indian Country Today.
The autobiography follows LaPointe's maturation from a ten-year-old child who suffered sexual assault at the hands of a man called "uncle" who may have been a blood relative or may simply have been a close family friend. The narrative deals with her attempts to recover from that trauma as she grows into adolescence and adulthood, falls in love and gets married, and deals with the consequences of a transient lifestyle.
The Pacific Northwest setting in the 1990s is integral to the author's story. The centerpiece of the narrative is set when this region took on national prominence in pop culture as a result of the grunge music scene and the popularity of the TV series Twin Peaks. Both of these elements within the broader American zeitgeist come to play huge roles in shaping the author's sense of self-identity as she begins to deal with the traumatic experiences of her childhood.
Comptia Koholowish
Comptia Koholowish is an ancestor of the author who lived in the 1880s. LaPointe's own biographical narrative is occasionally interrupted by the insertion of self-contained chapters which follow the life of this ancestor. The twin narrative threads are thematically unified as part of the overall story about communal trauma shared among indigenous women since the arrival of European settlers.
Comptia manages to survive one of the legacies of the European takeover of the continent when she fails to succumb to a smallpox epidemic which obliterates her extended family. She eventually meets a Hudson Bay Trading Company sailor named Capt. James Johnson. The story of indigenous identity is made personal when he forces Comptia to change her name to Mrs. Jane Johnson upon marriage.
Comptia will watch as her husband is hauled into court on charges related to illegally selling liquor to an Indian man. He is fined on the very same day that another white settler accused of murdering another Indian has the charges dismissed on the grounds of self-defense. Her husband will steal her allotment of land and build a house in which he lives comfortably while she is forced to call a shack with a dirt floor home.
Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna is the legendary lead singer of the punk rock band Bikini Kill, among other groups. It is Hanna's notorious delivery of lyrics in her "girl-like...scream" that urges the author to submerge herself with the burgeoning Pacific Northwest punk rock scene which will lead to the book's subtitled self-identification as a "Coast Salish Punk."
Hanna is an iconic figure not just within that milieu, but nationally as one of the seminal engineers of the Riot Grrrl movement of the era. The specific song which drives the author to seek out companionship within the punk rock world is one in which Hanna sings about the effects of experiencing date rate by a boy considered a friend who could be trusted.
LaPointe identifies strongly with the content of this song as a result of dealing with her own traumatic even of sexual assault. The Riot Grrrl movement proves especially enticing to her because it is marked by other bands like Bikini Kill which seek empowerment for girls and young women by speaking openly and frankly about the systemic misogyny and patriarchal oppression in American society.
Audrey Horne
In addition to the punk rock scene associated with the Pacific Northwest, the author is also drawn to a TV series which entered the American consciousness at the time. Twin Peaks became must-see TV for millions as it told in serial form a strange and often surreal story about the ultimate act of misogyny and patriarchy in the brutal rape and murder of Laura Palmer. It is the character of Audrey Horne with whom LaPointe comes to develop a very strong identification, however.
Unlike Laura Palmer whose murder is the engine driving the plot of the series, Audrey Horne survives a close call with almost becoming a victim of sexual predation by her own father. Since LaPointe's childhood trauma stems from a sexual assault by a man referred to as "uncle" who may or may not have been a blood relative, the underlying recurring theme of sexual assault by relatives that permeates throughout the show's narrative cements the author's identification with the series.
LaPointe eventually even begins to alter her appearance to resemble the character of Audrey more strongly. She also comes to see her search for a male partner in terms related to Audrey's doomed crush upon a slightly older FBI agent. Mostly, however, Audrey is significant to the author as yet another figure of the strong, empowered young woman. In this case, she is one of the few who is actually able to successfully avoid becoming sexually victimized.
