In this stirring collection of linked stories, Linda LeGarde Grover portrays an Ojibwe community struggling to follow traditional ways of life in the face of a relentlessly changing world.
In the title story an aunt recounts the harsh legacy of Indian boarding schools that tried to break the indigenous culture. In doing so she passes on to her niece the Ojibwe tradition of honoring elders through their stories. In “Refugees Living and Dying in the West End of Duluth,” this same niece comes of age in the 1970s against the backdrop of her forcibly dispersed family. A cycle of boarding schools, alcoholism, and violence haunts these stories even as the characters find beauty and solace in their large extended families.
With its attention to the Ojibwe language, customs, and history, this unique collection of riveting stories illuminates the very nature of storytelling. The Dance Boots narrates a century’s evolution of Native Americans making choices and compromises, often dictated by a white majority, as they try to balance survival, tribal traditions, and obligations to future generations.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
LINDA LeGARDE GROVER is a member of the Bois Band of Ojibwe and a professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Her novels, stories and poetry have received the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers Fiction Award, the Minnesota Book Award, and the Red Mountain Press Editor’s Award. Her memoir, Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year, continues in essay form her research and writing on Ojibwe families and their connections to land, history, and tribal communities. LeGarde Grover lives in Duluth, Minnesota, near Lake Superior, with her husband and near her children, grandchildren, and large extended family.
Simply mesmerizing.
(Booklist)Linda LeGarde Grover knows how to end a story―and manages to achieve both circularity and closure in each and every one. This is an impressive feat in and of itself, but for a collection of linked stories like The Dance Boots, which twist and tie and loop back on one another, the achievement is even more remarkable.
(ForeWord Reviews)A bright and determined vitality.
(Publishers Weekly)With stunning sentences and other stylistic elements reminiscent of Hemingway, Wolfe, Tan and others, this collection dazzles with its complex characters, rustic settings, and authentic situations.
(Dark Sky magazine)The powerful Ojibwe women in Linda LeGarde Grover’s Dance Boots tell stories in 'the rhythm and pattern of repeating and echoing, re-echoing and returning,' the pattern that keeps them strong. They need to be strong in the face of a terrible monster, one no less ferocious than those in Ojibwe traditional tales, one that steals children and returns them altered, alien, broken: the boarding schools. These are stories of survival as well, and as we follow the rhythm of her narrative we find ourselves joining the dance of a culture resurgent, a dance that returns lost children, that begins to heal a world.
(Heid E. Erdrich Author of National Monuments)Grover’s sense of character and setting in these stories is so immediate, so vital. She has put the Mozhay Point Indian Reservation on the literary map.
(Geary Hobson Author of The Last of the Ofos)Grover neither sentimentalizes nor victimizes indigenous people but rather shows them as the complex humans they are.
(Minnesota Reads)In eight beautifully crafted Ojibwe stories, Grover’s characters, members of the LaForce family, learn to survive Indian boarding school, a brutal marriage, and even how to set pins in a bowling alley all the while taking care to remember the ancestors and the road home. Whether home is the mythic Mozhay Point Indian Reservation, a clapboard house, or a horse paradise of woods near Duluth, Minnesota, Grover’s The Dance Boots is an Ojibwe jingle dance that bounced me off the page, and back on again. A wonderful read!
(LeAnne Howe Author of Shell Shaker and Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story)"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Seller: Goodwill, Brooklyn Park, MN, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Cover/Case has some rubbing and edgewear. Access codes, CDs, slipcovers and other accessories may not be included. Seller Inventory # 2Y6RVS001RSX_ns
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.5. Seller Inventory # G0820342173I4N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: As New. No Jacket. Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.5. Seller Inventory # G0820342173I2N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.5. Seller Inventory # G0820342173I4N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.5. Seller Inventory # G0820342173I3N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Reno, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.5. Seller Inventory # G0820342173I4N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Blue Vase Books, Interlochen, MI, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials. Seller Inventory # 31UIGP007KIB_ns
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: HPB Inc., Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_401903930
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Textbooks_Source, Columbia, MO, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Good. Reprint. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! May not include working access code. Will not include dust jacket. Has used sticker(s) and some writing or highlighting. UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes). Seller Inventory # 001345241U
Quantity: 6 available
Seller: GF Books, Inc., Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Book is in Used-Good condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain limited notes and highlighting. 0.62. Seller Inventory # 0820342173-2-4
Quantity: 1 available