Watermelon Nights - Hardcover

Sarris, Greg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 078686110X ISBN 13: 9780786861101

Publisher: Hyperion, 1998

Synopsis

In the tradition of Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie comes a compelling multi-generational novel about the love and forgiveness that keep a Native American family together.

About this title

About the Author

Greg Sarris, in addition to teaching at UCLA, is also chairman of the Federated Coast Miwok Tribe.

Reviews

Author and academic Sarris returns to the polyglot milieu of his short-story collection, Grand Avenue, in this witty, highly textured first novel. In fact, the short stories of the prior book form a kind of prequel to the current work. Filipinos, Chicanos, Native Americans and Anglos mingle again in the neighborhood of Santa Rosa, Calif., a place of bootleg liquor, dancehalls and cockfights, where 20-year-old Johnny Severe and his family, Waterplace Pomo Indians, struggle to keep solvent by working for canneries, department stores or dairy farms. Johnny's used-clothing business is not doing well, and he longs to get away to the city. Exacerbating his restlessness is the change in the community's social climate: the Pomos are seeking federal recognition as a tribe, and everyone is trying to be more Indian than his or her neighbor. The irony is, of course, that all of them are mixed bloods, descended from the same Indian woman, Rosa, and the Mexican general who raped her. The genealogical research necessary for federal recognition and the story of Rosa serve as springboards to Sarris's aim of conveying the history of the tribe, allowing shifts in narration from Johnny to his grandmother, Elba, and his mother, Iris. Sarris handles multiple perspectives well, in a manner akin to Louise Erdrich. He is as adept at writing from a female perspective as was Michael Dorris. This is a rich, satisfying tale of plain folks trying to survive in an unfriendly social milieu, and of the ties that bind them, sometimes too closely, together. Author tour. (Sept.) FYI: Sarris is chairman of the Federated Coast Miwok Tribe.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This compelling family saga captures the story of the destruction of U.S. Indian culture and the attempts to renew it. Sarris focuses on family relations complicated by grinding poverty, limited prospects, human pettiness, and the enduring love of family and tribe. Twenty-year-old Johnny Severe represents the new generation and is gifted with the vision inherited from his ancestors. Yet he is struggling with his sexuality and his used-clothing business as he works to help the Pomo tribe regain official government status. His grandmother, Elba, tells the history of struggle against prejudice and poverty since their common ancestor, Rosa, was forced into marriage with a Mexican and began the dissolution of their ethnicity. Iris, Johnny's mother, bridges the gap between the two generations, but her ambitions and desires to separate from her culture hold her apart from her family. What binds them all together is the often grudging respect for the traditions that have withstood tribulations and the unruliness of the family and tribe. An ambitious debut novel. Vanessa Bush

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 078686110X
• ISBN 13: 9780786861101
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432