Customer Reviews

Drowning in Fire (Sun Tracks)

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Craig Womack's first fiction novel, "Drowning in Fire" reads at once like a familiar story told numerous times by your grandmother and like the exciting first experience with a new adventure. The writing is poetic and captivating, as are the inter-twined stories. Mr. Womack writes in a unique style combining stream-of-consciousness memory recall, brilliant use of local dialects and languages, and colorful characters lovingly described. The book reads like a first-hand account of personal history. It is a "can't put it down" page turner and a "I must re-read that page several times for the pure enjoyment of it" storytelling masterpiece. It is poetry and action adventure at the same time.

The story is about the experiences of growing up Native American and gay in the straight, white world of Oklahoma. But, it is also about what it means to be Native American, gay or not; it is about what it means to be gay, Native or not; and it is about growing up as an outsider in this world, Oklahoma or not. It is a rare book that trancends time, setting and race to touch universal themes. "Drowning In Fire" accomplishes this.

With this work, Craig Womack helps define modern Native literature. He has also written one hell of an entertaining, enjoyable, important book. Read this and you will not be sorry.

I wrote a conference paper involving this book, and I'm glad I took my professor's suggestion of picking up this book. I won't mention much of the plot or narrative here ... one must read the novel in order to grasp the narrative structures Womack erects.

First, if you are interested in Native American/Indigenous North American literature, you will know Womack's name. But I've found that not many have actually read this particular book. Do it. It is of the same quality as Silko's Ceremony.

Second, if you are interested in Queer/Gay Men's literature, read this book. It is situated within a very specific community while also chasing universal truths. It is beautiful and tender and frightening and uncomfortable and true.

I cannot praise this novel enough.

Delving into the realm of community and tribal life, this novel highlights the inner struggles of native life and being gay. This aspect in native life, that has hitherto been unexplored, was refreshing and well developed. Overall a great read.

A sliver here, a shard there, a piece fallen under the couch and pushed to the side. Assemble these moments and spread them out on the floor. Look: There's turn-of-the-century Oklahoma and the Creek resistance to statehood. Here's a tension-filled scene of sexuality, boyhood, a near-drowning on a lazy summer day. An old woman who used to play bebop in roadhouses. A Sherman-Alexie-like family of Native American poseurs/clowns who stubbornly and humorously cling to a white evangelical church in an utterly incompetent, utterly naive attempt to assimilate and somehow connect to our own pathetic outsider attempts to belong.

But they're shards. Only pieces. The whole is a mess. Multiple point-of-view with no apparent purpose. A plot that starts here, lingers there, ends up here - not a river meandering, but a series of puddles staining the sidewalk. Two main protagonists - Josh Henneha and Jimmy Alexander - who are virtually indistinguishable in their bookish, passive, overly thoughtful ways; products of a beginning writer writing about himself, most likely. The prose that forgets that each word is a prayer and for entire chapters lets itself goose-step across the page despite earlier and later stunning passages of exquisite beauty.

If I were an editor. If I were a publisher. I'd grab Womack. I'd cultivate and encourage. The subject matter is huge and poignant, the idea of us/them, insider/outsider, spirit/material. Womack's historical sections of turn-of-the-century Creek culture are stunning and engaging. The book itself has a certain human power rarely found in mass-produced fare: it fairly glows with rage and angst and love and fear.

There's so much potential. I hope Womack is busy right now on his next book, and his next and next.