The Grass Dancer [Hardcover]

Susan Power (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1994

From the 1860s, when two lovers are separated by death, the cosmic drama of the two spirits desperately seeking to be reunited molds the lives and fates of their descendants, in a lyrical debut novel shaped by the lore of the Sioux. A first novel. 50,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A major talent debuts with this beguiling novel whose characters are Dakota Sioux and their spirit ancestors. Covering some of the same themes as Louise Erdrich but displaying her own distinctive voice and transcendent imagination, Power has produced an authentic portrait of Native American culture and characters who are as resilient and tangible as the grass moving over the Great Plains. In interconnected stories that begin in 1981 and range back to 1864, the residents of a Sioux reservation endure poverty, epidemic illness, injustice and--no less importantly--jealousy, greed, anger and unrequited love. The tales begin and end with Harley Wind Soldier, a 17-year-old whose soul is a "black, empty hole" because his mother has not spoken a word since the accident 17 years earlier in which Harley's father and brother died. Eventually we discover the true circumstances surrounding that event and other secrets--of clandestine love affairs, of childrens' paternity--that stretch back several generations but hold a grip on the present. Meanwhile, Harley falls in love with enchanting Pumpkin, an amazingly adept grass dancer whose fate will make readers gasp. Mercury Thunder and her daughter Anna use magic in a sinister way, and tragedy results. Herod Small War, a Yuwipi (interpreter of dreams), tries to bring his community into harmony with the spiritual world. The existence of ghosts in the real world is accepted with calm belief by the characters, who know the old legends and understand that the direction of their lives is determined by their gods and ancestors. Power weaves historical events--the Apollo Moon landing; the 19th-century Great Plains drought--into her narrative, reinforcing the seamless coexistence of the real and the spirit realm. A consummate storyteller whose graceful prose is plangent with lyrical metaphor and sensuous detail, she deftly uses suspense, humor, irony and the gradual revelation of dramatic disclosures to compose a tapestry of human life. Seduced by her humane vision and its convincing depiction, one absorbs the traditions and lore of the Sioux community with a sense of wonder reflecting that with which the characters view the natural world. This is a book that begs to be read at one sitting, and then again. A chapter appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1993. BOMC and QPB selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA?Rich in myth and legend, this powerful story of the Dakota Indians flows seamlessly back and forth in time from 1864-1982. In the mid-1860s, a young Sioux maiden, Red Dress, translates the sermons of Father La Frambois but deliberately misinterprets the Jesuit's message, through which he hoped to convert her tribe. In a dream, she sees herself in a western settlement and is compelled to journey to Fort Laramie where she observes the violence, hypocrisy, and emptiness of frontier life. Here she becomes secretary to the zealous Rev. Pike, and falls victim to the ultimate treachery when she is murdered by the crazed preacher. In a moving ceremony immediately after her death, the grief stricken Ghost Horse symbolically marries Red Dress. He lives on as a sacred clown and frenetic dancer among his people. The memory of these two restless spirits haunts generations to come with illustrative signs, mysterious visions, and fateful interference. The strength of the novel lies in the meshing of the various stories of the descendants of Red Dress and Ghost Horse so that they all come together in one piece. The result is a passionate portrayal of universal human emotions and a vivid account of Native American history and culture.?Jackie Gropman, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1st edition (August 3, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399139117
• ISBN-13: 978-0399139116
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,960,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, lyrical, moving, April 19, 2004

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Grass Dancer (Mass Market Paperback)

Susan Power's THE GRASS DANCER, although billed as a novel, is a series of tightly bound stories centered around the thematic core of a Sioux myth. Separately, these stories, many of which have been previously published in high-quality magazines such as The Atlantic and The Paris Review, are excellent, but read as a whole, one after the other, they form a powerful whole - a novel, if you will. The world Ms. Power creates it at once current and ancient, with legends and tales of ancestors so entwined with the present day that the Native American characters seem less like individuals and more like highlighted segments on a multi-branched and infinitely continuing time line. But that is not to say that Ms. Power creates simple characters. Her people are complex and often troubled, struggling with the magic that swirls around them.

The individual stories tell the larger one of Native Americans, in particular the Sioux, and their battles, both physical and metaphysical, with the white men who invaded their land. This is not a historical novel, however, but rather a lyrically psychological one, where myth becomes fact. The pivotal legend that embraces all the characters in The Grass Dancer is the one of Red Dress, a Sioux woman with breath the scent of plums and a spirit that guides a long line of women to their destinies, both tragic and exhilarating. Charlene, a direct descendent from Red Dress, is in love with Harley, a descendent of Red Dress's husband Ghost Horse. But Harley keeps in his heart the spirit of another woman. Charlene's grandmother, Mercury, uses Red Dress's magic to control men and to wrest Charlene from her mother. Lydia, who is mute by choice, survives her husband and son, dead because of her anger with the magic of Red Dress. The magic in this novel has such force that when Red Dress finally tells her own story, we cannot wait to see what kind of mortal she was that gave rise to such spiritual power. Sadly, the Red Dress story is the weakest of the book. Her motivation to lure white men to their deaths, ultimately bringing on her own, seems flimsy. However, Red Dress as a spirit has become so poignant through the other stories that her final appearance in the novel is perhaps one of the most moving passages.

Susan Power is an extraordinarily gifted writer with a taste for language that makes a reader want to linger over her words. Her imagination is so precise that it is difficult to accept that her characters do not exist beyond the pages.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thumbs up!, November 21, 2002

By 

C. Pond (Plantation, Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Grass Dancer (Mass Market Paperback)

I recently was assigned The Grass Dancer for my Native American Literature class. I must say that this is a fantastic book. All of the characters are beautifully crafted. The stories of each character, such as Anna Thunder and Lydia Wind Soldier give the reader real insight as to why each character behaves in a particular way. The loss that the various characters suffer does not fill me with sadness, but gives me hope that they will see each other once again once they leave this world. The backwards progression of time brings Harley Wind Soldier to a place that allows him to fill the hole over his heart. This story displays the vivid and very much alive culture of the Dakota Sioux. Susan Power does a wonderful job of creating a world that is true and completely fictional all at the same time. I would definitely recommend this book to other people.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practically Lyrical, January 27, 2005

By 

rba (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Grass Dancer (Mass Market Paperback)

The editorial and other customer reviews do a good job of covering the characters and basic plot, so I won't go into that.

This has to be the best book I've read in months. It's practically lyrical, the sentences are so pretty. The dust jacket is more than a little off on the plot, so don't read that. It's a collection of self contained stories about a messed up family living on a reservation in North Dakota.

Each story is narrated by a different person and takes place a random number of years before the last one. The effect is that each new chapter gives you a different understanding of the events in the previous chapters, until you get back to the "present" time from the first chapter, where you have a completely new take on everyone involved.

It's unusual to find a short story collection this good from such a new author. I highly recommend it.