All My Sins Are Relatives - Hardcover

Penn, W. S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080323709X ISBN 13: 9780803237094

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1995

Synopsis

The customary cant about being an American Indian goes like this: Indians must live in wide open spaces; they must define their spirituality by chant, dance, and drum; they must pass down their traditions with reverent care; and they must offer tourists Indian art and Indian experiences to take home. On one side of commercial Indianness there is sloppy sentimentality, and on the other, speechless hatred. But what of those born between, like W. S. Penn, with an Anglo parent demanding that Indianness be abandoned and an Indian parent clinging to all that can be held? What of those who grew up in the cities? Can they express more than confusion, frustration, and rage? Are there alternatives to assimilation, submission, or revolt? In All My Sins Are Relatives Penn finds in his own family three generations trying to come to terms with their differences and their Indianness. Within its pages, Penn describes learning the depths of his love for his grandfather, to whom he dedicated this book. “As arrogant as youth can be, I was often too busy silently grading his grammar to pay real attention and see what he was giving me.” Among the gifts was an awareness of what a story could tell, what it could conceal, and what it could never tell. His grandfather inhabited a different sense of time, and it was a long while before Penn lived there too. When he did, he was back again with a story, working on how Indian writers wrote poetry and prose. In the work of other Indian writers and in his own Penn found that although white and Indian cultures cannot mingle, they can be bridged. All My Sins Are Relatives is a bridge.

About this title

About the Author

W. S. Penn, an urban mixblood, is an associate professor of English at Michigan State University and the author of The Absence of Angels.

From Publishers Weekly

Penn, an associate professor of English at Michigan State and a novelist (The Absence of Angels), shares his thoughts on his mixed-blood Anglo and Native American heritage in these well-crafted literary essays. Born to a white mother and a father who descended from the Nez Perce and Osage Indians, Penn endured a childhood shaped largely by his father's shame about his Native American heritage and his abusive mother's hatred of all things Indian (they eventually divorced). In ``Dreaming,'' Penn tells how, torn between two cultures and suffering from prejudicial treatment by teachers and other adults, he pursued an Indian way of removing himself spiritually from pain. In another piece, ``Respect for Wendy Rose,'' Penn writes about early American Indian literature based on oral traditions, and about the current trends in Native American writing. In other, very personal pieces, Penn deals with the loving but uneasy relationship he has had with his Indian grandfather and his application for conscientious-objector status during the Vietnam War. Illustrations not seen by PW.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 080323709X
• ISBN 13: 9780803237094
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 257