The Light People is a multi-genre novel that includes a series of nested stories about a tribal community in Northern Minnesota. Major themes include Oskinaway’s search for his parents and the legal wrangling over the possession of a leg that has been removed from a tribal elder. Each story is linked to previous and successive stories to form a discourse on identity and cultural appropriation, all told with humor and wisdom.
Taking inspiration from traditional Anishinabe stories and drawing from his own family's storytelling tradition, Gordon Henry, Jr., has woven a tapestry of interlocking narratives in The Light People, a novel of surpassing emotional strength. His characters tell of their experiences, dreams, and visions in a multitude of literary styles and genres. Poetry, drama, legal testimony, letters, and essays combine with more conventional narrative techniques to create a multifaceted, deeply rooted, and vibrant portrait of the author's own tribal culture. Keenly aware of Eurocentric views of that culture, Henry offers a "corrective history" where humor and wisdom transcend the political.
In the contemporary Minnesota village of Four Bears, on the mythical Fineday Reservation, a young Chippewa boy named Oskinaway is trying to learn the whereabouts of his parents. His grandparents turn for help to a tribal elder, one of the light people, Jake Seed. Seed's assistant, a magician who performs at children's birthday parties, tells Oskinaway's family his story, which gives way to the stories of those he encounters. Narratives unfold into earlier narratives, spinning back in time and encompassing the intertwined lives of the Fineday Chippewas, eventually revealing the place of Oskinaway and his parents in a complex web of human relationships.
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
The publisher's "American Indian Literature and Critical Studies" series continues with this richly complex, multilayered, multiple-genre novel. Each character tells a story up to the point where a new person is introduced; then the newcomer continues on until the next voice appears. Amazingly, the huge cast of characters and their snippets of stories manage to gel into a cohesive whole. Storytelling, poetry, and court transcripts are among the literary styles employed in an engaging tale that begins with a young boy's quest for knowledge of his parents and rambles through generations of life on the Fineday Reservation. Recommended for large collections and those specializing in Native American literature.
- Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati Technical Coll.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati Technical Coll.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
This is a Native American tapestry of memories within memories, stories within stories, and myths within myths that are interwoven with slyly humorous portraits of government bureaucrats, museum administrators, tribal elders, and the cross-cultural phenomena of contemporary Native American life. This said, the novel actually relates the deeply personal quest of Oskinaway for his parents, spanning decades and encompassing the dizzying complexity of rapidly changing tribal life as it does. We meet shamans old, young, and wanna-be as well as tribal politicos willing to cancel bingo in order to ensure full turnout for dignitaries coming from Washington "to commemorate the quincentenary of Columbus' arrival in North America [and who] want this rez [i.e., reservation] to be part of a nationwide celebration." The cast of characters also includes such unlikely members as Four Bear's lost leg, which ends up in a museum case, and the "prisoner of haiku," a sculptor-saboteur incarcerated for setting politically motivated fires that are famous for their beauty, "for the sabotage was never performed without the grace and idealism of the artist." Whitney Scott
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Use your mind's eye and see a different world...,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Light People: A Novel (American Indian Literature & Critical Studies Series) (Paperback)
If you like Louise Erdrich's Tracks or Love Medicine, you'lladore this little novel by Gordon Henry. Like many Native American writers, finding a niche in the publishing world is difficult. With the publication of this one, publishers may be knocking on Henry's door for more. I hope so! Pay attention when you read this one, it isn't escapist fluff, there's meat on these bones (an insider's chuckle, for those who've already ready the book).
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
suberb!,
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This review is from: The Light People: A Novel (Paperback)
I have just finished reading the novel and must take the time to praise it. First, I have to say that I find the book far superior to Erdrich's Love Medicine. In fact, there is no comparison, except maybe that both present a series of stories that end up crisscrossing each other, although you don't see that until most of the half of the book. If I were to compare the novel to another, the one that comes to my mind, in terms of structure, is Silko's Almanac of the Dead, even if Gordon Henry's novel has a much narrower scope. Still I think he covers a lot of issues of contemporary Indian life: storytelling, museums, philosophy, anticolonial struggles, community, myth, Vietnam etc. Unlike Erdrich Gordon Henry is always grounded in specific issues, never falling into generalities. I highly recommend it.
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