The Power of Horses and Other Stories [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1990

The fifteen stories contained in The Power of Horses portray, each in a different way, the sensitive and enduring culture of the Dakota of the Upper Plains and convey many of the basic truths that have sustained Elizabeth Cook-Lynn’s people for countless generations. Though the stories are often filled with violence and grief, they are also brimming with beauty, gentleness, charm, and humor. In these striking and memorable tales of Dakota country, Joseph grieves that the body of his middle son will never be returned to his native shores from the distant World War I battlefields where he was killed; family members gather to bury their father and barely survive their own weaknesses and bickering; a grandmother takes her grandchild for a walk and imparts to the child some of the old wisdom of times past; a whining hound dog—primordial to the Dakota—competes unwittingly with Reverend Tileston’s efforts to bring the word of the Christian God to a tight-knit family, and wins; Magpie is a poet but is also on parole, and just as his friends have begun to rethink the finality of justice, he is “accidentally” shot and killed in the white man’s jail. Cook-Lynn writes unsparingly yet compassionately of reservation life in the last century. In each of these gemlike stories she reveals something of the mystery and essential toughness of the Dakota people.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Composed in a spare style that is more folkloric than minimalist, this slim but powerful first collection of 15 short stories by Cook-Lynn focuses on Native Americans in various periods of the 20th century. Dominated by dysfunctional families, economic hardship and sudden violence, her characters struggle to survive and also to maintain their dignity--in some cases, merely to ask why their tribal culture is one in which "strange events were witnessed with inexplicable but characteristic tolerance." Whether writing of a young Vietnam veteran, of a family burying the violent head of its household or of a divorcee fighting for custody of her children, Cook-Lynn masterfully shows how Native Americans are caught in a double bind: trapped with white society in a relationship marked by a sense of betrayal and mistrust, and haunted by the symbolic forces of nature, with reservation lands generally seen as "repositories of sacred worlds unknown to all but the most ancient tenants." The author is a member of the Crow Creek Sioux tribe in South Dakota, and is an associate professor of English and Native American Studies at East Washington University.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA --This collection of short stories depicts native American reservation life in the twentieth century. Some of the stories read like folktales, as in the opening story in which an old woman walks with her grandchild as they experience the beauty of the sky. Other selections are contemporary stories of reservation life dealing with drinking, families, or relationships. These tales are realistic, often painful to read; they are sometimes humorous, but always poignant. This collection could be used to broaden one's sense of the native American culture when reading for pleasure or doing a research project. Those who enjoyed Michael Dorris' Yellow Raft in Blue Water (Holt, 1987) should also appreciate these short stories.
- Donna R. Deibel, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Pub; 1st edition (July 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559700505
• ISBN-13: 978-1559700504
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,068,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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