David Treuer's Blog

Hi Everyone--I'll be reading and talking at ASU this Wednesday from 5-7 in Cochise 228. Here's a link: http://diversity.asu.edu/institutiona...

I'll be talking about the inspiration (and frustration) that led to REZ LIFE (or maybe a better way to say it is that stems from rez life . . . . sometimes).

I hope to see you all (and by all I mean ALL) there!

David

Hi Everyone–here are some reading dates–make them if you can:

IN MINNESOTA:

Feb 14 12:00 Brainerd Library

Feb 14 4:00 Walker Public Library

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Feb 15 1:00 PM Park Rapids Library

Feb 15 6:30 Blackduck Library

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Feb 16 10:00 Margaret Welch Library in Longville

Feb 16 4:00 PM Cass Lake Library

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Feb 17 11:00 Wadena Library

Feb 17 6:30 Pine River Library

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Feb 18 4:00 Bemidji Library

AND in MINNEAPOLIS:

Feb 21–Hennepin County Library 300 Nicollet Mall at 7:00 the Talk of the Stacks

I'd love to see you all out and about in the northwoods and down in the Cities

Limited copies available for sale at all events. but you can always get your books in advance here:

amazon

powells http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780...

and the KINDLE EDITION of REZ LIFE: http://www.amazon.com/Rez-Life-Indian...

Hi Everyone,

Here are some early pre-publication reviews of REZ LIFE. Very pleased.

from BOOKLIST:

Advanced Review – Uncorrected Proof

Rez Life: An Indian's Journey through Reservation Life.

Treuer, David (Author) Feb 2012. 352 p. Atlantic Monthly, hardcover, $26.00. (9780802119711). 978.

Treuer (The Translation of Dr. Apelles, 2006), an Ojibwe who grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota, has written eloquently about the contemporary Native American experience in his three novels. In this brilliant amalgam of historical research and personal memoir, he presents a compelling and elucidating discourse on how reservations began, and what he sees for their future. The modern reservation was born, he says, with the Indian Appropriation Act of 1851, when government policy involved "containment and removal." Even so, "contained" tribes still held rights from earlier treaties to hunt, fish, and harvest timber on their ceded territory, leading to multiple court rulings over the years. Treuer enlivens his historical discussions of these issues—as well as Indian housing, mandatory Indian boarding schools, Indian activism, and the multiple effects of casinos—with present-day interviews with friends, family, teachers, BIA officials, lawyers, and tribal-court judges. No mere litany of Native American achievements and losses over the past 150 years, Treuer's account reads like a novel, brimming with characters, living and dead, who bring his tribe's history to life.

— Deborah Donovan

FROM KIRKUS: REZ LIFE

An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life

Author: Treuer, David

Review Issue Date: November 15, 2011

Online Publish Date: November 7, 2011

Publisher:Atlantic Monthly

Pages: 368

Price ( Hardcover ): $26.00

Publication Date: January 31, 2012

ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-8021-1971-1

Category: Nonfiction

In a book that is part memoir, part journalistic exposé and part cultural history, novelist Treuer (The Translation of Dr. Apelles, 2008, etc.) offers a movingly plainspoken account of reservation life.

The author intertwines stories of growing up on the shores of the Lake Leech Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota with those of the Ojibwe people and other Native American tribes. Treuer writes that "[m]ost often rez life is associated with tragedy"; at the same time, he notes that it is also shot through with pride and a profound love of tradition. Alternating between personal recollections of unforgettable "rez" personalities—e.g., tribal police officers, rice-gatherers and fishermen—and sharp-eyed historical analyses of events in Native American history, the author sheds light on aspects of Indian culture closed to most non-Natives. He speaks candidly about the "comforting trouble" he finds at the heart of his own mixed-race family and the perennial problems of alcoholism, poverty and crime facing reservation dwellers everywhere. Treuer also delves into the issues surrounding Native American sovereignty and treaty rights, examining the inhumane—and sometimes genocidal—government policies that have led to the systematic abuse, exploitation and disenfranchisement of Native Americans. The author soundly critiques tribal governments as well, focusing in particular on the corruption and cronyism that characterizes so many of them. For most of these entities, "there is no balance of power; on the contrary power is very much out of balance." That Treuer is one of a few Native Americans to have made it out of the "rez" only adds to the book's poignancy. He examines a culture that is in crisis, but persists, even thrives, with enduring grit and courage.

Powerful, important reading.

Sadly–I couldn't upload the wonderful PW review and Q and A but they were (both) great.

Hey All. Thought I'd list some new books I've read (new to me) that I think are worth the time. Prep–Curitis Sittenfeld, The Girl Who Played With Fire (great thriller), The Human Stain (how does Roth go so high and so low so quickly?), The Anatomy Lesson (as before).

well, the segment of Speaking Of Faith with yours truly aired again recently. Thanks for all the kind and cool comments from many many people. I SHOULD say (so I will) and I SHOULD say because everyone's praise makes it all the more apparent: I am perhaps the smallest and wobbliest wheel in the Ojibwe language revitalization movement. Truly. The folks at Niigane at Leech Lake. Waadookodaading at LCO. My older brother Anton, John Nichols, Dan and Dennis Jones, many many others–they are the real workers. I do my best and I also publicize their efforts. So there. If thanks are to be given, thank them.

Other than that–it is my sincerest goal to write the most impersonal, cleanest, non-prurient blog possible. Gosh, I mean, people READ these. Hats off the braver bloggers among us.

D

Hi All,

Just back from Cambridge, MA where we launched the New Literary History of America. It was great–the reception of the book is beyond belief (I believe it–having worked onit and having seen the talent behind and in it).

Also–check my travel pieces at Slate.com about Indian Casinos.

And if you STILL have time, I wrote a piece special to the LA TIMES about ANTI-HEROES.

if you just can't get enough (literature, that is) check out the New Literary History of America edited by Werner Sollors and Greil Marcus (and yours truly among others). it will be around for a long time. beautiful AND deeeeep.

Well, after much technical difficulty the blog is back. Whew. Now the world can breathe.

Let's see–I"ve got a new piece in the LA TIMES: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/05

What else? Finished another novel. What else else? Traveled all over the place last spring: NY, Boulder, New Jersey . . . . met some great folks along the way. Now I am back, and writing like mad. Will finish the non-fiction book on reservation life one of these days soon. By soon I mean in shorter time than it took Proust to complete Remembrance of Things Past.

Cheers, D

here is the list of top 10 books by dead writers, books one cannot do without, books one must read to get into heaven (or whatever you call it) no particular order:

1. Lolita

2. Pale Fire

3. Remembrance of Things Past

4. Zeno's Conscience

5. Senility (or Emilio''s Carnival)

6. If on a Winter''s Night a Traveler

7. Collected Stories of Raymond Carver

8. Mrs Dalloway

9. The Group

10. Austerlitz

Ton ten books by NOT dead people:

1. The Time of Our Singing

2. The Emperor's Children (I know, I know–but it really is that good)

3. Austerlitz (Sebald is, in my mind, sort of dead and sort of not)

4. Geek Love (a classic)

5. Beloved

6. Illywacker

7. In Praise of the Stepmother

8. White Noise

9. Mystery Train (non-fiction) and Lipstick Traces

10. Collected Stories of TC Boyle

11. All The Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian

12. The Farewell Symphony

That's all I can think of now. But it is 6 AM and I'm just going to bed.

Reading now: Feast of Love–a wonderful thing, that book and download mp3 online. Not what you"d ever expect.