Diane Glancy

A multiple narrator approach is used in this novel that follows a group of family and neighbors during the Cherokee Removal. The title, and a major theme, is taken from the myth of the bear, ᏲᎾ. The legend goes that a young boy began spending all his time in the woods, his body growing long fur, never even coming home to eat. He told his family that they should leave the settlement of the Cherokee people and live in the woods, where there is plenty of food and no need to work. His entire clan decided to follow him despite the other clans pleading with them to remain, and thus bears came into existence.

Glancy interprets this legend as illustrating the greed and self-centeredness that all people are capable of. It is these motivations that led the white citizens of Georgia and surrounding states, working through their governments, to force the Cherokee from their homes onto a long winter journey that would kill a quarter of them. The novel shows all that horror in action.

Is it unfair to show that in the midst of this great injustice that people on the receiving end might also act out of the exact same motivations, only with far less coercive power available to them? The two primary characters, Maritole and Knobowtee, are a husband and wife who cause each other great hurt over these months on the trail, each seeming to be metaphorically devoured by their “inner bear”. This is made very clear with Maritole, who dreams of and has hallucinations of being clawed and eaten by a bear. On an intermediate level, between that of the US Government/Cherokee relationship and a marriage relationship, relations between the Tennessee Cherokee and the Georgia Cherokee and the North Carolina Cherokee also show these motivations at work.

The title thus refers both to large, public wrongs like Cherokee Removal, and the small private wrongs that each of us might commit no matter where we find ourselves situated on the larger public matters. To push the bear, to fight against the bear, is a battle for everyone, however much power they have or do not have.

Such a battle naturally has religious connotations. The Cherokee on the trail are divided between the old ways of belief and Christianity. Cherokee medicine men argue with Cherokee clergy as each try to relieve the sufferings of the people. Cherokee wonder how those who follow the teachings of Jesus can be responsible for such great suffering, or at best just stand and watch as the detachments pass their towns. Jesus himself might wonder, but not be all that surprised, as one woman suggests:

“Jesus knew all his life he would push the bear because of us,’ I told Maritole as we walked. ‘The claws piercing his head like thorns. His feet and hands nailed with claws. The darkness licked his fur up and down when he was on the cross. Yet he was the man ᏥᏌ ᎦᎶᏁᏛ who pushed the bear.”

One downside to this novel for me is the fractured multiple narrator construction. Perspective regularly shifts once or more per page. Distinctiveness of narrative voice is I think an issue.

By coincidence I finished the novel the day before the annual Remember the Removal bike ride begins in New Echota, Georgia, in which Cherokee youth ride almost 1,000 miles over one of the trails walked during the Removal.
(https://rtr.cherokee.org/about-the-ride)

3.5/5… (more)

For me, this was a difficult book to read and digest. One reviewer said they didn't have much in common with the writer. But I had a lot in common with the write, being Christian, driving long distances, having moved a number of times. Still, her experiences were different, being in the West and Midwest, being on the plains and the long, long distances she drove across the open expanses, sleeping the rest stops. I admired her grit and independence. But I admit that I had difficult finishing the book.… (more)

Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging, edited by Diane Glancy and Linda Rodriguez, offers various perspectives on indigenous identity and who gets to claim it.

The collection uses personal narrative coupled with research and statistics (minimally, don't worry) to show how divisive the topic has become, both within and without the community. From largely debates about who can/should speak for Native Americans (think Louis Owens' Mixedblood Messages) we are now concerned at least as much with who can claim any benefits or compensation. In the process, it seems we often forget that many people with a mixed heritage simply want to honor their culture, even if they aren't intimately attached or even knowledgeable in it.

When I was trying to figure out my own relationship with my ancestors, Owens' book along with Silko's Ceremony were two books that spoke strongly to me. I think this book will do the same for many readers who are more concerned with understanding their heritage and less concerned with whether they will qualify for any colonialist government programs.

I would also recommend this to nonnative readers who want to better understand that Native Americans are not a monolithic group but as diverse as any other. Because of the personal nature of the stories, readers will be better able to relate.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (more)

“Home is the Road:Wandering the Land, Shaping the Spirit” by Diane Glancy is as close to poetry one can get when reading a memoir. In a lyrical prose style interjected with the author's own poetry, quotations of bible verses, and even wikipedia article entries, Glancy conveys the complexity of her life by documenting her nomadic travels across the country in recent years.

In many ways I feel like an outsider when reading Glancy's book, as there's very little experiential that I can relate to in her life. I'm not Native American, I don't remember the 1940's, I'm not Christian, I don't particularly enjoy poetry, and I have never lived in the South. I genuinely felt alienated when I started reading this book, as Glancy is writing richly from these experiences and absolutely does not stop to provide explanations. Besides which the prose style was, at least initially, difficult to parse. Yet as I kept reading I was drawn into her world, to feel as I imagine she felt. What skill, and she even tells us what she's doing as she's doing it:

“In my field of poetry, some of the fragments don't seem to fit together. In class we read poems that have unknowable parts, new poetry, non-representational, much like abstract art. To abstract is to place the finding of the meaning on the reader.” (p51)

I have no idea how you will feel while reading this book, but I recommend you do so.… (more)