Grand Avenue - (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies) by Greg Sarris (Paperback)

About the Book

Bound together by a lone ancestor, the lives of the American Indians form the core of these stories-tales of healing cures, poison, family rituals, and a humor that allows the inhabitants of Grand Avenue to see their own foibles with a saving grace.

Book Synopsis

Grand Avenue runs through the center of the Northern California town of Santa Rosa. One stretch of it is home not only to Pomo Indians making a life outside the reservation but also to Mexicans, blacks, and some Portuguese, all trying to find their way among the many obstacles in their turbulent world.

Bound together by a lone ancestor, the lives of the American Indians form the core of these stories--tales of healing cures, poison, family rituals, and a humor that allows the inhabitants of Grand Avenue to see their own foibles with a saving grace.

A teenage girl falls in love with a crippled horse marked for slaughter. An aging healer summons her strength for one final song. A father seeks a bond with his illegitimate son. A mother searches for the power to care for her cancer-stricken daughter's spirit. Here is a tapestry of lives rendered with the color, wisdom, and a quest for meaning that are characteristic of the traditional storytelling in which they are rooted, a tradition Sarris grew up hearing and learning. Vibrant with the emotions and realities of a changing world, these narratives--the basis of an HBO miniseries--are all equally stunning and from the heart.

Review Quotes

"Greg Sarris . . . has made himself an exciting new part of the latest Native American Literary Renaissance, but his stories go way back and they look far ahead, like the good stories that our grandmothers have told for thousands of years. Greg Sarris . . . has listened closely to their stories, and we should all listen closely to his."--Sherman Alexie, author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

"I admire Greg Sarris's sense of the gritty passion of life. A resonant thread of myth and laughter pulls the tales together. He allows the story to overtake him, the sign of a fine storyteller."--Joy Harjo author of She Had Some Horses and In Mad Love and War