Remnants of the First Earth - Softcover

Young Bear, Ray A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802135528 ISBN 13: 9780802135520

Publisher: Grove Press, 1998

Synopsis

Ray A. Young Bear's work has been called "magnificent" by The New York Times and "a national treasure" by Bloomsbury Review. Dazzlingly original, but with deep roots in his traditional Mesquakie culture, Young Bear is a master wordsmith poised with trickster-like aplomb between the ancient world of his forefathers and the ever-encroaching "blurred face of modernity".
Remnants of the First Earth continues the story of Edgar Bearchild -- Young Bear's fictionalized alter ego -- which began with Black Eagle Child, a New York Times Notable Book for 1992. Young Bear revisits the Black Eagle Child Settlement and its residents, including Ted Facepaint, Rose Grassleggings, Junior Pipestar, Lorna Bearcap, and Luciano Bearchild. At the center of the novel is a murder investigation involving a powerful shaman holding court at the local Ramada Inn, negligent white cops from nearby Why Cheer, and corrupt tribal authorities. This lyrical narrative swirls through the present and into the mysteries of the age-old stories and myths that still haunt, inform, and enlighten this uniquely American community.

About this title

Review

Ray A. Young Bear first introduced his fictional alter ego Edgar Bearchild in Black Eagle Child: The Facepaint Narratives. Now, in Remnants of the First Earth, he extends his protagonist's adventures, chronicling Edgar's difficult journey into manhood as he struggles to navigate between the traditions of his forefathers and the demands of the modern world. As the novel begins, Edgar is a child at the Black Eagle Child Settlement in the 1950s. His life is a mix of tribal pride and poverty, of white-run schools and Indian dances. As Edgar grows older, he experiences racism, the promise of love, the perils of a murder investigation, and visions.

Remnants of the First Earth moves back and forth between the novel's reality and the myths of the Black Eagle Child people, between present and the ancient past, and between the ordinary and the extraordinary. More a collage than a straightforward narrative, the novel requires patience and demands that attention be paid. Those who invest both in this remarkable book will find the return worth it.

From Kirkus Reviews

A continuation of native American poet Young Bear's exuberant fictionalized memoirs, begun in Black Eagle Child (1992), featuring the further remarkable adventures and recollections of the writer Edgar Bearchild. This is not so much a sequel to that earlier work as another (and even more ambitious) take on the themes explored in the first volume, once again using first-person narrative, letters, and poetry to trace Bearchild's life growing up in the 1960s and '70s on the Black Eagle Child Settlement in Iowa. ``Knowledge was the real issue,'' the adult Bearchild, a controversial poet, reflects at one point, ``knowledge needed by the next generation to facilitate their spiritual passage,'' and there's no doubt that a part of what Young Bear (a member of the Mesquakie tribe) is doing is to preserve a portrait of the rich, complex spirituality of his people, and of the way in which it penetrates every aspect of Native American life. Bearchild's often comic collisions with tribal folklore (which his family is determined, whether he likes it or not, that he should learn) deftly make plain the central role that a reverence for the past plays in maintaining the tribe's identity. He's also interested in tracing the ways in which this heritage is filtered through an individual's imagination, and transformed. Bearchild's life on and off the reservation is variously rendered as a mock epic, a spiritual quest, and a seriocomic adventure. There's also considerable anger here. As Bearchild notes, when reflecting on the current fascination with all things native, many Indians still regard white society as a ''master mouse-catching cat race that sadistically maimed its aboriginal prey for entertainment.'' Out of an idiosyncratic mix of folktales, rowdy adventures, and religious imagery, Young Bear has fashioned a powerful, utterly distinctive, and unsettling portrait of Native American life. It is one of the most interesting (and audacious) ongoing projects in American letters. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802135528
• ISBN 13: 9780802135520
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320