You absolutely must read this book if you work with autistic kids. It is funny, endearing and tells it exactly like it is. I dare you to read it only once. ( )

A beautifully written story of the lives of three generations of Native American women. Even when the eldest tells her story, her telling barely overlaps the stories told by the others, even though she is discussing much of the same territory. This is possible both because of the positions of the characters and the absolute control that Dorris has on his story. At first I wanted the stories to overlay each other so that I could see the event from two or three perspectives, but soon I understood what Dorris was doing in not allowing the reader that privilege, just as the characters deny each other that knowledge.

Rayone was my favorite character. I loved her sense of humor, independence, sense of self-preservation, and her wry look at the world around her. She was much more resilient than her mother, more like Ida in that aspect. Because of that she was much less screwed up by her family situation than she could have been.

Initially I didn't like Christine, but as I began to understand her and her situation (much of which she brings on herself), I grew to like her and sympathetize with her.

Ida's story was the shortest (and given her age, could have been the longest), and she was the most surprising character. I didn't expect to like her at all, but did. Life had tried to batter her, but would never bow her. Having seen Ida from the views of both Rayona and Christine, it was fascinating then seeing her through her own eyes.

My one disappointment was the very last paragraph of the book where Dorris states for the reader what he's been doing throughout the book, as if the reader was not already well aware of it or as if the reader was not intelligent enough to figure it out. It was totally unnecessary and insulting to the reader.

I'm very sad that Dorris will never give us any more novels. He was an excellent writer and gave me a story, and characters, that will live with me for a very long time. ( )

In his first novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Michael Dorris tells the entwined stories of three generations of American Indian women. The first section is told by 15 year old Rayona, the second by Rayona’s mother Christine, and the third by Christine’s mother Ida.

The theme is the braiding together of the lives of these three headstrong women and their extended families. Parts of each story show up in the others, with the same scenes told from a different perspective at the same time new material is brought in by each narrator. While not a unique approach, Dorris handles it well.

The problem is that the characters are not likable. Rayona is a good person and trying hard, but she is so well-armored that she is not approachable. Given her upbringing, her hard shell in understandable, but it is only at the end of her story, when she breaks out and we see her potential, does she become interesting. Christine is too angry and self-destructive to like, although as she bounces from one bad decision to another, it is possible to feel sorry for her. Ida is the toughest nut of all and it is heartbreaking to watch her intentional choices set the wheels in motion.

Yellow Raft brings to life the Native American concept of “historical trauma” – that “history has caused trauma and unresolved intergenerational grief and how this trauma and grief is passed from one generation to the next.” But that is a difficult concept to contemplate and Dorris does not make it easy.

Also posted on Rose City Reader. ( )

This was a really great book and I probably should have read it a long time ago. My favorite thing about the book is that each section is told from a different perspective, which I really like. Especially in this story it was important to be able to see things from different perspecitves- things aren't always how they seem. ( )

This novel covers the lives of three Native American women from one family. Each of the three sections of the book are narrated by one of these women. The sections do not exactly overlap the same period of time as the others. They are "braided" - this being a kind of running theme throughout the work.

The story (or stories) illustrates the challenge of life both on and off the reservation. The young girl's tale is a struggle to find identity and belonging - mostly on her own resources. Her life is refracted through the accounts of the other two in a way that expands the story to that of the larger family. The narrative exposes the family secrets and series of hardships of which each individual woman is only partially aware.

Although this is not the kind of novel I normally read, I thought it was well written. Some might consider that the author played up certain stereotypes of the Native American experience. But I thought he made a fair attempt at showing the challenges in the lives of people who have become displaced not only on a grandly historical scale but within the vicissitudes of family tragedy. ( )