15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Sensuous and Compelling Portrait of a People's Survival, February 1, 1999
By A Customer
Like Steinbeck or Faulkner, Native American novelist Greg Sarris uses the lives and voices of his characters to evoke a living landscape in which memory and magic, place and passion are inseparable.
The hypnotic nature of Sarris's story-telling is due, in part, to the way in which the plot unfolds in reverse, unwinding backward through time in layers of lost memory and meaning. In Part One of the novel, a young mixed-blood Pomo Indian man named Johnny Severe threatens to leave his ancestral homeland behind while struggling to define his own evolving sexual, moral, and tribal identity. In Parts II and III, Johnny's mother and grandmother re-tell Johnny's story--and the story of the Waterplace Pomo people--from their own radically different perspectives in historical time. Their stories are sometimes harsh, sometimes haunting, often hilarious and ultimately hopeful. Taken together they hold the keys not only to Johnny's survival, but to the survival of the Waterplace Pomo people as well.
Though few in numbers, the Pomo people of Northern California are widely regarded by anthropolgists and art collectors as among the greatest basket-weavers on earth. Priceless collections of Pomo basketry are held in major public and private collections worldwide. With similar artistry, Greg Sarris weaves the separate voices of his three main characters into the whirling pattern of a single narrative, a hypnotic tale in which the lives of the characters tangle and intertwine.
The tightly woven multi-vocal nature of this novel makes for challenging reading. Those who want their Indian stories sugar-coated are better off renting Disney's Pocahontas cartoon. Like Johnny, the reader is forced to combine and compare the various conflicting versions of a painful past described like a puzzle to be pieced together, a mystery story to be solved. But the reward for the effort is far deeper and more memorable than any Kevin-Costner-in-a-loincloth version of Native American history could possibly provide. Hidden in the warp and weave of this novel are clues not only to Johnny's place in modern America, but to our own shared history as well. After reading Sarris's work, you'll never see the landscape of California the same way again.
Readers familiar with Sarris's earlier book Grand Avenue (the basis of the award-winning HBO mini-series) will find themselves at home here: many of the same characters and conflicts subtley reappear. Yet by avoiding the trendy nihilism of so much contemporary fiction, Sarris transcends the boundaries of his own previous work, wresting both meaning and magic from the harsh lives of his characters. In the end he gives Johnny the most precious gifts of all: the gift of self-knowledge; the gift of love; the gift of survival.
With these gifts, Watermelon Nights places Greg Sarris at the forefront of a new generation of emerging Native American writers. As a native-born California writer, Sarris also inherits the legacy of an earlier generation of California authors, from John Muir to John Steinbeck to Wallace Stegner, who helped to place the California landscape at the center of America's moral imagination, a part of what Stegner aptly called the "geography of hope."
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Perspectives, Superb Character Development, August 28, 2011
Author Greg Sarris offers up a phenomenal generational triptych of Northern California Native American life between about 1920 and close to present, detailing the experiences and perspectives of three generations, Grandmother, Mother, and Son (although not in that order). We have the Waterplace Pomo, a fictionalized tribe, splintered by the forces around them, namely land encroachment, cultural encroachment, and tribal comflict. Sarris sets the book up in a mixed chronological order, thank goodness nowhere as confusing and spartan as Faulner's "The Power and the Fury". We're introduced first to Johnny, son of Iris, grandson of Elba.
Johnny opens the book in near-present time, living in wrong-side-of-the-tracks South Park at the edge of Santa Rosa, where many Waterplace Pomo Indians, as well as Black and poor Mexicans live. Johnny is intent on trying to find a place, torn between his Native American culture and the Anglo world. Moreover he is coming into manhood and discovering his true self and place, while trying his darndest to keep his tribe together. Johnny is constantly trying to understand the connections and perspectives of fellow tribal members at odds with one another. His world is turned upside down by the arrival of another tribal member, Felix--who seems much more concerned with his own image and standing. Despite the facad of confidence and arrogance, it is Felix who disrupts tribal goings-on with his own lack of self knowledge and fragile confidence. He almost manages to destroy Johnny...a lesson for those confronted by such people!
Elba's narrative is a good fictionalized account of Native American life in Northern California during the 1920-50 period. Splintered tribes, extreme conflicts between tribal leaders who preach against all things Anglo even when it is apparent that there is no other way for tribal survival other than mixing to a degree with the people and cultures who now surrond the belagured Waterplace Pomo people. The strong tribal leader, Big Sarah, creates more disharmony by excoriating members who act "white" by going to school, or conceive children outside the tribe, while offering no apparent alternative to the crude survival methods of earning bread money through sexual favors and working for surrounding white families. Caught up in this fundamental battle between a non-bending tribal leader and external forces, many of the upcoming generation, including Elba, are prone to the ensuing circumstances.
The last portion of the book is given to Iris. Iris seems at odds with her indian heritage, which she clearly understands from the whites around her not to be a good thing! She excelles at school, but is frustrated by her mothers encouragement to see and hear the cultural essences of her roots. Elba never clearly instructs Iris, waiting in vain for something intuitive to kick in. It does not. The tie that binds this family together, Iris end up living away from the rest of the tribal members, living a relatively Anglo life, but nonetheless never truely feeling at peace with herself. The strongest undercurrent here is the relationship between Iris and Her mother, Elba.
Iris is the product of a rape by a gang of white men--although Elba never tells her this. To Iris, Elba blames her own prior ways as a "floozy", perhaps as a means of freeing Iris from fear, or not trying to poison all white people (as Big Sarah had). After all, Iris is half white...Unfortunately this doesn't prevent something similar from happening to Anna, Iris's tribal and school friend. After Iris has witnessed the rape of Anna and remained crounched in fear, her mother rebukes her. The result is that Elba, never feeling fully Indian, not knowing the language, flees her mother and the South Park Neighborhood.
There are many floes in this river. Standing out are the many connections people can never break--especially between domestic servants and the families they work for, and other tribal members. While the dominant characters with Elba and Iris are female, two poignent men who stand out are Old Uncle, repository of tribal knowledge who seems to just graze Elba with his healing and grace. Then there is the surprising Patrick Polk, son of the rather domineering and sinister father who once employed Elba. Both suggest repetitive patterns as the tale progresses, and both lead Iris, Johnny and Elba to change the way they act and think for the better, suggesting that acceptance of one's self (Indian, Mixed Heritage, man, woman, gay, straight, etc) is at the core of healing and redemption.
There is no easy ending, no happy solution to life's problems here--as the book ends, people are still busy trying to resolve issues. But they have not given up, and perhaps that is the key to Sarris's tale.
A terrific story, with much to be said for its attention to detail, both the complicated connections and emotions of the characters, and their community. I didn't want it to end! To heck with this being a great book by a Native American, it is just a SUPER BOOK! This would make a terrific read in an advanced high school or a college setting. Especially when considering the undervalued existence of Native (pre-Spanish and Anglo) Americans in California.
For those interested in Northen California's Indian culture, from the top down, I would recommend "When the Great Spitit Died: the Destruction of the California Indians". If you can stomach a non-fiction book, really-READ THIS FIRST. if not, hey, catching up won't kill you! :)
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