Reservation Nation, David Fuller Cook, Boaz Publishing Company, 2007, 199 pp
This is a priceless little treasure of a book. The narrator is Warren, a young Native American man, who was raised on a reservation in the 50s and 60s. His grandparents brought him up after he lost his parents in a car crash and imparted to him, through stories and example, the truths of what it means to be Indian.
As Warren relates the incidents of his childhood, you meet many of the key characters on the reservation. Some maintain the traditional ways and others struggle with assimilation into the white man's world. It is Warren's grandfather who trains him to recognize his power and his role. Despite tribal politics, continuous betrayals and rip-offs by white government and business, even murder, Grandfather's wisdom brings clarity to Warren's quest for understanding life.
In the final chapter Warren has become The Seed, his Indian name and role. He states the Indian view of the universe and of life. It was deeply moving to me as he said, "The ways of the white man will pass, their influence will fade like the waning moon, because they are founded upon lies." Truth in fiction.
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