Roofwalker

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. Power—who is herself a Standing Rock Sioux—writes about contemporary Native Americans who have left reservations for cities (especially Chicago) and universities in the early-to-mid-20th century, and about their children. I especially enjoyed the tale about the tiny statue of St Jude coming to life and learning Lakota, and the story about the young Indian woman who goes to Harvard and discovers the spirits of the other Indians who have been there before her. As is the case with all short story collections, some were more successful than others, yet all of them feel easily and inextricably linked to one another by Power's clear and lucid prose.

A compelling collection of stories, some fictional and others historically true, by an urban Native American woman.

Susan Power is a Dakota Woman who has lived most of her life in Chicago, while remaining strongly connected to her identity as a Native American. In this book she tells the stories about herself and other urban Indians. Whether fictional or true, her stories are quirky and insightful. They prove that although many Native Americans now live in cities, they have not assimilated and disappeared.

I always find short stories hard to review, especially when they are as varied as Power’s. There is no unifying plot to describe, and I simply can’t write about each story. All I can do is provide the flavor of a few of them. A show more common theme is Indians holding on to their identity as they adapt and cope with urban living. All the stories contain unexpected elements that sharply reveal the complexity of actual human experiences. Bits of an Indian version of magical realism surface here and there.

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