I Hear the Train: Reflections, Inventions, Refractions - Hardcover

Owens, Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806133546 ISBN 13: 9780806133546

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001

Synopsis

In this innovative collection, Louis Owens blends autobiography, short fiction, and literary criticism to reflect on his experiences as a mixedblood Indian in America.

In sophisticated prose, Owens reveals the many timbres of his voice--humor, humility,love, joy, struggle, confusion, and clarity. We join him in the fields, farms, and ranches of California. We follow his search for a lost brother and contemplate along with him old family photographs from Indian Territory and early Oklahoma. In a final section, Owens reflects on the work and theories of other writers, including Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Gerald Vizenor, Michael Dorris, and Louise Erdrich.

Volume 40 in the American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series

 

About this title

About the Author

Louis Owens (1948–2002), who was of Choctaw-Cherokee-Irish descent, was Professor of English at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of several books, including Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel and the novels The Sharpest Sight and Bone Game.

Reviews

Owens, who is a "mixed blood" of Native American and Irish ancestry and professor of English and Native American studies at the University of California at Davis, presents an eclectic combination of autobiography, including personal musings, observations, and short fiction. The result is a revealing and often delightful glimpse into the life and attitudes of a brilliant and interesting man. Owens, who recounts his experiences as a forest ranger, firefighter, wanderer, and teacher, is a gifted writer whose prose is lyrical, elegant, and direct. He reveals his innermost thoughts, joys, and heartaches, yet he never descends to embarrassing self-absorption. The result is a portrait of the contemporary dilemmas faced by many Native Americans who have "made it" in white society. On the other hand, the appeal of this deeply felt and beautiful book is universal. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

In each section of this excellent collection, Owens's carefully crafted writing captures the reader with exceptional descriptions of place and people, the mix of native blood in America, and the strength of the individual: "He'd awakened to the river, rising out of sleep the way the winter river rose from its brushy bed, hearing before anything the throbbing of the current under the sand, his eyes opening to the sun caught like blood in the naked branches of the sycamores and cottonwoods out here in the river." In the autobiographical section, Owens (e.g., Dark River) describes his service on a hotshot fire-fighting crew in Arizona and later working at Glacier National Park. His quest to locate his brother and his visit with him captures the enormity of family, the Vietnam War, and the bond of brothers who grew up hunting and fishing for dinner. Then a collection of well-crafted short stories is followed by a final section in which Owens discusses the creations of other writers "who work in the field of native American literature this unsettled zone of frontier, interstitial scholarship." Recommended for all libraries. Sue Samson, Univ. of Montana, Missoula
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0806133546
• ISBN 13: 9780806133546
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 282