From Library Journal
Ada Ronner is a librarian of Cherokee descent working in the Manuscript and Rare Book Room of Oklahoma's Northeastern State University, where the stories of her ancestors, meant to be spoken aloud, are now written down and kept under lock and key. Ada considers this and many other issues as she skates in circles at the Dust Bowl roller rink, the sound of her skates reminding her of the traditional stories dispersed with the winds. Ada was born a Nonoter, which is a great name for a woman with so many questions. But now that name belongs to her sisters-in-law, and the novel weaves together the stories of the two families, including Ada's physicist husband, her daughters, the brothers whose antics she reads about in the papers, and their wives, who constantly leave the children with their dependable aunt. These stories alternate with the tale of the forced westward migration of the Cherokee, told from the documents Ada safeguards at work. Like many Native writers, Glancy (The Mask Maker) is freeing herself of time constraints, and her novels are consequently getting increasingly less linear. Her newest work is told in a stream-of-consciousness style, with an emphasis on the relationships among the events and not their chronology. The result is an engaging novel that deals with the issues of present and past among Native peoples and of Spirit in those who have embraced Christianity. Recommended for women's and Native studies collections and collections of serious fiction.
Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Glancy's short, lyrical chapters manage to balance the lyrical against the narrative so as to create a formally complex work in which personal and cultural memory support and vie with the sometimes gritty realities of the present."-Brian Evenson, author of Contagion: And Other Stories "Voices and stories fill the pages of prolific Native American writer Glancy's latest ... as a middle-aged Cherokee woman faces conflicts at work, in her fractured family, and in her faith... Post-structurally defiant in its bits and narrative pieces, but at its core a probing, honest tale." Kirkus Reviews
