From Library Journal
Womack's sensual first novel is the coming-of-age story of Josh Henneha, a Muskogee Creek Indian growing up in Oklahoma in the 1970s. Studious, thin, and effeminate, Josh is ridiculed by the other boys in his small town except the athletic and popular Jimmy Alexander, who includes the outcast in basketball games and swimming in the nearby lake. Josh yearns for Jimmy's friendship and is attracted to the basketball player's maturing body. He fantasizes that he has secret powers of swimming underwater and flying through the air that will bring them closer together. Given Josh's strict upbringing, his sexual attraction to another boy confuses him. But his Creek heritage, as transmitted by his grandfather and great-aunt's tales, sanctions being different. When Jimmy actually introduces Josh to sex, it repels him. But a chance meeting 20 years later between the two former friends eventually develops into a loving relationship. Womack (Native American studies, Univ. of Lethbridge, Alberta; Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism) has fashioned a satisfying and well-written novel. Recommended for most public library collections. Joseph M. Egan, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
As a boy growing up in the Muskogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, Josh Henneha feels inflamed and ashamed by his attraction to other boys. Lifted by his Aunt Lucille's tales of her own wild girlhood, Josh learns to fly back through time and uncover a legacy of ceremonies and secrets he can forge into a new sense of himself. Interweaving explicit realism and dreamlike visions, Drowning in Fire explores Josh's journey to understand his identity within the framework of his heritage.
