Man Who Heard the Land (Native Voices) [Hardcover]

Diane Glancy (Author)

Book Description

Series: Native Voices | Publication Date: September 15, 2001

In this haunting novel by celebrated Native American author Diane Glancy, an unnamed man driving a lonely Minnesota highway hears the voice of the land--but he can't make out what it has said. The man is a professor who teaches a 'Literature and the Environment' course, but he soon realises that there is much he must still learn about the land, his past, and his home state. What follows is a kind of odyssey of self-discovery. He submerges himself into the history of the region, trying to piece together geology, Native folklore, and early explorer literature, all in an effort to decipher what the land has said. Along the way he experiences the deaths of his parents; he is stranded in an ice-fishing house for a cold winter night; he helps rescue a family from a flood of the Red River. He encounters more elusive obstacles when he tries to gather his material into a book but becomes hopelessly entangled in complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions. But the more the man works to uncover universal truths, the more he circles toward certain inescapable realities in his own life. This is a small masterpiece of prose -- at once an enthralling narrative of one man's personal quest and a deeply probing meditation on each person's place in history.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The award-winning Glancy (Pushing the Bear) is a prolific poet, playwright, short-story writer, essayist, and novelist of Cherokee and English/German descent who writes brief, tight works intertwining Native American and Christian spirituality in the modern world. The middle-aged protagonist of her affecting new work teaches environmental literature at a Minnesota university. His adoptive parents are dying, he has no job security, and he is a loner. Verging on depression, he "listens" to the bleak frozen landscape around him and begins to hear his own Native American roots. The consequences are mixed; his life is still troubled at novel's end, but he has a fuller understanding of himself, lending a note of affirmation to the proceedings. This short, poetic work is recommended for all libraries. Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib. McMinnville, OR
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Diane Glancy

Product Details

• Hardcover: 174 pages
• Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press (September 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873514173
• ISBN-13: 978-0873514170
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,424,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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