While the Locust Slept: A Memoir (Native Voices) [Hardcover]

Peter Razor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2001 | Series: Native Voices

In stark, haunting prose, first-time author Peter Razor recalls his early years as a ward of the State of Minnesota. Told in flashbacks and relying on research from his own case files, Razor manages to piece together the shattered fragments of his boyhood into a memoir that reads as compellingly as a novel. Abandoned as an infant at the State Public School in Owatonna, Razor spent his childhood at the hands of abusive workers who thought of him as nothing more than 'a dirty Injun'. He endures years of beatings 'with a broom or radiator brush -- whatever was handy' until, one night while he is asleep, one of the matrons attacks him with a hammer. Fearing for his life, he makes two failed attempts to run away from the orphanage. Quickly labelled a trouble-maker, he is later indentured as a hired hand to a farm family. The farmer beats him, clothes him in rags, and treats him like a slave, often working him to exhaustion without food or water. Remarkably, Razor struggles to attend high school and begins to dream of another life, but first he must endure the darkest and most vicious attack yet...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A stirring tale of a Native American childhood, this debut draws on personal memories and official records to track Razor's painful yet triumphant years as a ward of the state of Minnesota. Abandoned by a jobless, alcoholic Chippewa father and an emotionally troubled, institutionalized mother in 1930, Razor was taken at 17 months to the State Public School at Owatonna, which he describes as a rigid, Spartan institution, where he awaited an adoption that never happened. At 15, having endured prejudice, isolation, neglect and terrible physical abuse by the staff, he was sent to work for a local farmer named John. Via a series of detailed flashbacks, Razor recounts his oppressive relationship with his new employer in spare prose loaded with feeling and insight. John's cruel treatment of Razor and of John's own wife, only stiffens the orphan's will. Meanwhile, at school, a savage hammer attack by one of the staff leaves Peter seriously injured and unable to attend classes or work for weeks. Upon returning to school, Razor finds new friends and experiences in the local high school, recounted with great energy and humor. But his situation on John's farm worsens, and eventually he's removed. While the book's conclusion is credible, it rushes toward a feel-good finish that does not live up to the power and grit of the early chapters. The epilogue of this valuable coming of age story sketches Razor's adult livelihood as a journeyman electrician, his decision to investigate his reviled Native heritage and the three children who have enriched his life. National advertising; regional author appearances.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

With its storytelling quality and method of flashing back and forth in time, Razor's memoir creates an almost hypnotic effect. Though he wrote the book at age 73, Razor relates working as a teenager for a farm family, where he was beaten regularly, as if it were the present and his experiences as an orphan at the State Public School in Owatonna (where he was sent as an enfant) as the past. Razor's story is a revelation partly of the constant physical risk he faced as an orphan and partly of the abuse he suffered from being "Injun" at a time when discrimination against Native Americans was practiced openly by many. Razor has since gone on to learn about his native culture and traditions and to receive recognition for his instrument making. Razor's memoir adds to our growing knowledge of Native American history and is part of an honorable tradition of memoir writing by Native American writers, including Linda Hogan, Paula Gunn Allen, N. Scott Momaday, and others. Recommended for all public libraries. Barbara O'Hara, Free Lib. of Philadelphia
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873514017
• ISBN-13: 978-0873514019
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,564,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tragedy and horific treatment of innocent babies & children!, October 9, 2001

By 

Jan L. Richards (Big Bear Lake, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: While the Locust Slept: A Memoir (Native Voices) (Hardcover)

My father as well was in the Owatonna "orphanage" which he termed as an "intournment camp/prison"! Babies and children were treated more tragically at this place than you could even imagine. Babies died for lack of "touch" and nurturing! Children were beaten, mauled, and oftentimes died as a result of such treatment. Peter Razor cites an insightfully true story of just SOME of the horific experiences of babies and children in this most insightful book on our country's past (AND EVEN PRESENT) ways of "Social Services" treating our "lost" children!! A MUST TO READ!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book by a wonderful man, September 5, 2004

By 

Mark Cooley (Sheffield, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: While the Locust Slept: A Memoir (Native Voices) (Hardcover)

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Razor while on a trip to Cochiti Lake, New Mexico. After talking for a while he passed me a copy of his book and asked me to read it and then share it with others. I read the book cover-to-cover on the trip home and was amazed that the man I had talked to had once been the little boy in the book. Mr. Razor was a kind and gentle man that never revealed the scars from his childhood in any part of our conversations. America's inhumane treatment of the Indian people is well documented. This book offers graphic descriptions of individual cruelty that was fueled by ignorance and prejudice. I don't know if many human beings could have endured this sort of trauma and survived to be so kind. Peter is a truly incredible person and I would recommend his book to anyone.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stirring Memoir of a Native American Child Raised by the State, September 20, 2007

By 

A. Hay (Wyoming USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: While the Locust Slept: A Memoir (Native Voices) (Paperback)

This is a chilling, true-life account of a childhood that should have never been, and 17 years of life that would forever haunt the author, Peter Razor. Peter, an intelligent boy that was raised in an orphanage as a ward of the state, then placed in an abusive indentured farm home had a childhood that is reprehensible, and sadly true. Supposedly protected by the state, Peter became a boy who flinched from physical contact, and had no understanding of what a normal happy home should be like. Unlike Peter Razor, not all children were lucky enough to survive the abuse that could be found in state orphanages when Peter was growing up. Corporal punishment went unchecked, and Peter, an American Indian, also had the added disadvantage of prejudice thrown in. Eventually placed on a farm, his placement was not carefully monitored, and the abusive treatment with this family was never noted by the social worker who was suppose to be monitoring Peter's placement. While the Locust Slept, a Minnesota Book Award Winner, is a compelling, well written tale that reads like a novel, yet is sadly a true tale of a horrific childhood that was unchecked by the state that was suppose to be protecting him