Linda Hogan (1) (1947–)

Soon after starting this book, I realized that I'd read it once before, soon after it was published. That said, there's a reason I'd allowed myself to forget it. While I can see how some readers might find this book a renewing story of celebrating life and embracing the natural world, for this reader, it's anything but.

The book is beautifully written, with striking images. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those images are centered either on endangered nature, brutality, or approaching show more death. The book presents a bleak view of nature and the human condition, though ironically, the main characters of the book are always moving beyond trauma, and rarely facing trauma. As a result, they seem to be too easily recovered, too easily moving forward, and the book as a whole comes across as simplifying issues which cannot (and should not, in my opinion) be simplified. It's true that the power of love, family, and heritage are presented as a vehicle toward recovery and knowing the natural world, but at the expense of the individual and realism, to the extent that it's far from believable.

Peace of mind or spirit isn't easy, and this book comes across as a rather didactic treatise on grief, mourning, and appreciation for life. As a result, while there's beauty in the language, this was one of the more depressing and false-feeling books I've read, and the images of animals dying and lost were often too much for me considering especially how easily the humans all managed to survive the natural world around them.

In the end, this book is one which certainly promotes a wide range of opinions, but it's not for me, and I can't recommend it. There's enough grief and sadness in the world without my reading a book which does little more than dictate that I should be aware of the natural world and move beyond grief.

Lastly, the book's tendancy to over-romanticize Native Americans and their appreciation for the land, unmatched by any around them, only surved to further separate this book from the reality it attempts to criticize. I appreciate and welcome literature with an ecological awareness, and literature that tries to work for the environment, but this book simplifies and over-idealizes the issues to the point that I don't know that it could do much for either awareness or understanding--anyone who comes to this book to learn about those issues already understands them at a deeper level than the book encourages. show less

Solar Storms' extraordinarily beautiful prose makes it a book to savour. It's a coming of age story set in remote Native American community (I don't believe the nation is ever named; Hogan herself is Chickasaw) near the border of Minnesota and Canada, where a young woman called Angel leaves behind the foster system in order to live with her great-grandmother Agnes, her great-great-grandmother Dora Rouge and her step-grandmother Bush. Hogan's writing is full of insight; admittedly, it can show more tend towards the didactic and the romanticized at points, but overall there is a sense of dignity and restraint here that's compelling. The ending is balanced beautifully between grief and hope. Highly recommended. show less

This was recommended to me as an earlier version (1990) of the noted book and movie Killers of the Flower Moon (2017), about the murder and destruction of the Osage tribe members who were landowners of sparse territory by government decree who became wealthy holders of oil leases in Oklahoma in the 1920s. All the violence perpetrated and the vast corruption of almost every single white man charged with distributing payments to tribal property owners and with investigating the murders of the show more tribe that had been forcibly removed from their land during the Trail of Tears is a horrifying story. This book is told from the viewpoints of tribal members, who realize way too late that they are still not perceived as human beings, but "just Indians", as the genocide continues. Their demands for justice are thwarted even by traitors within their own tribe. The Greycloud family is aided by a former government agent, Lakota Sioux Stace Red Hawk, and his transition to become a protector of the Osage residents is inspiring, if mostly futile. This is a heartbreaking book, encompassing the clash of the law/lawless and the rituals and rites of the old ways. show less

Just a gorgeous, gorgeous read. Hogan's writing is so flowing--it washes over you in waves and sort of just settles there. It might take a second to get used to, but it's so worth it. The story is brutal and there's a moment at the end where you're like "UM EXCUSE ME?" (or at least I was) in a narrative way, but it was just all so good and I did not leave the book feeling betrayed at all. It was just... healing, in a lot of ways? Like even though it's a book that's about grappling with show more traumas of all kinds, it's also a book about healing and that sense just permeates the entire text even when terrible things are happening to the characters. A beautiful book, seriously. show less