The Professor
One of the many targets of white society that the narrative draws back the bow to unleash a volley of arrows toward is liberal education on the subject of Native American culture. The centerpiece of this critique is, perhaps a little surprisingly to some, a female college professor. Considering that the book is primarily seen through a feminine perspective, this choice is definitely a little eye-popping:
“The professor was a graying white woman with a thin neck that drooped forward over a bony concave bosom, pulled by the weight of a hefty Navajo squash blossom necklace. She had bargained an elderly man down to a hundred dollars for the necklace during her summer research trip to Arizona; fingering the nali, silver worn and warmed over decades to a near-white patina, she thought of desert winters, of retirement, and of how tired she was of lecturing to class after class of sluggish students who had no interest in her scholarship. She sighed again, at the empty first row, then at eight tiers of students..up to the center of the tenth and highest row where her eyes stopped at what she had hoped without hope to see for the past two years she had taught `Indians of America’: an authentic Indian-looking brave.”
The Best Frybread on the Reservation
It is a simple and established fact of life that Margie Robineau’s frybread is the best on the entire Mozhay Point Indian Reservation. Even those who are not fans of Margie must reluctantly if silently admit this is true even as they whine and moan about how she won’t share her secrets. Frybread is something more than a simple among Native Americans. Frybread is—like sawgrass—part of the cultural DNA, so be assured that making it better than anyone else is not a thing to be taken lightly:
“Margie’s frybread was so light it all but rose from the plate, so tender as to be all but unfelt in the mouth, so tasty that the very thought that the moment couldn’t last forever brought to the eater an undertone of sorrow that added an intangible brine, like a grain of salt from dried tears yet to be wept. The golden rings that bloomed as they deep-fried in hot lard grew from a dough mixture that she varied from day to day: sometimes she used wheat flour, sometimes white; sometimes she added blueberries. On occasion, if she was in a hurry, she didn’t even let the dough rest before she fried it, sending it into the near-smoking grease deprived of its gestation in the dark and quiet of the dishcloth-covered mixing bowl. Variations didn’t seem to matter: the resulting quality was always the same.”
Waking Up
One might not think that the simple act of waking up and greeting the arrival of a new day by opening one’s eyes would be a thing capable of inspiring a writer to some of the greatest heights of imagery to be found within a certain single volume. That is just plain uninformed thinking, of course. For a writer gifted with a talent for imagery, no action is too simple to inspire prose poetry:
“She woke to the hesitant gurgle of the toilet flushing weak and thin on the other side of her bedroom wall as the middle-aged Margie who duct-taped her arch supports into her dance boots as she dressed for Grand Entry and who needed more than six hours of sleep. Half-opening her eyes to the osmotic fogginess of the beginnings of illumination, that gray light that seeps into rooms where morning sleepers endeavor to extend the night, she blinked at probing fingers of reality forcing daylight through slats of drawn vinyl window blinds, prying apart the crack between drawn curtains.”
Nickel and Diming It in Duluth
For instance, take the act of choosing which of the five-and-dime stores in a stereotypical small town in America. That iconic locale is Duluth and the time is back when the decline of Woolworth’s as the indisputable heavyweight champion of the five-and-dime store was just about to kick into high gear. What hardly seems worthy of imagery becomes a snapshot of a time and place on the verge of a nervous breakdown:
“The Jupiter store in downtown Duluth, wedged between Baker’s Shoes and a small print shop on Superior Street, was not as large, bright, or well-stocked as the Woolworth’s at the end of the block (called Big Woolworth’s by Duluthians in order to distinguish it from the smaller Little Woolworth’s at the other end of downtown). Jupiter customers moved more slowly than Woolworth customers; they didn’t ask for much and had developed a culture of down-at-the-heels camaraderie and rather courtly courtesy, which was the reason for underdog Jupiter’s survival in the face of Woolworth big business.”
