Drowning in Fire (Sun Tracks) by Craig S. Womack

by Craig S. Womack

As a boy growing up in the Muskogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, Josh Henneha feels inflamed and ashamed by his attraction to other boys. Lifted by his Aunt Lucille's tales of her own wild girlhood, Josh learns to fly back through time and uncover a legacy of ceremonies and secrets he can forge into a new sense of himself. Interweaving explicit realism and dreamlike visions, Drowning in Fire explores Josh's journey to understand his identity within the framework of his heritage.

Genres: Fiction, Indigenous, LGBT, Queer, Novels, Magical Realism, Native American

Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating look at growing up LGBT in one of the Native American communities in Oklahoma. And while the LGBT component is at the forefront, it's not the only aspect of the book. There are stories told from a few different perspectives, all from the Native American side but not all LGBT. There's a really nice well-rounded view spanning from the early twentieth century all the way until the 1990's.

I think the thing I found most interesting was the gay couple in the early parts of the 20th Century. Nobody in the Native American community really seemed to mind, at the very least they tolerated them, but they had to keep it entirely hidden from the good white Baptists.

I found myself relating mostly to Josh, the boy who always has his head in the clouds or in a book, quietly nursing his crush on the popular kid. While the Native part is new to me, everything else is entirely relatable.

[Franzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book talks about interesting and important topics such as the clash between Native cultures and American society. I really liked the vibe of the book. However, while I liked the vibe of the story, the book didn’t capture me as much as I hoped, and I had a hard time engaging with the characters. I probably needed to be in a better headspace to fully appreciate this book, so I might read it again in the future because I really want to take in its full message.

[Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book overall just a wildly slow reading experience and a paper I'm writing on it thats making me want to throw up so it gets 3 stars for being involved with my terrible writing process.

[Caleb Tankersley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, important novel. The character are vivid and realized and surprise you with their incredibly human reactions. There's some very fancy writing in spots, which makes for a bit of slogging. But I'd say that amounts to about fifteen pages out of 300. The rest is beautifully written. I was emotionally smitten by the ending. Jimmy and Josh are truly a couple for the ages. But there were so many other interestingly drawn aspects to the novel. The Creek history. Lucille's voice. The Ozark small-towniness of the people. The inescapable pall of religion over rural gay men. God, this was just fantastic. An essential read for Queer Native studies for sure, but a great book for anyone to dive into.

[Megan Davitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

You have not yet read this? Read it now. This will probably become the first book I reread. I will be thinking about the literary themes for a long time.

[jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

i absolutely love this book. i had to read it for my ethnic writers class and i’m so glad i did. so much of it was infuriating but i gather that’s the point. i could’ve used 100 more pages of this book, i liked it that much. i’m so emotionally attached to josh and jimmy, too, and i would’ve loved to see more of where they ended up.

[Charlotte]

This was deeply personal and very good feels weird to rate

[Heather McCabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the most exciting prose I’ve read recently, loved the way time opened and closed

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a bit of a departure for myself, I am going to write a review on a non-Asian American text. Some of you might be sighing in relief. Did I only read Asian American books? I think not! In any case, so this is the story of Josh Henneha, a Muskogee Creek, who comes of age in contemporary Oklahoma. His life is one of otherness from the very beginning. Pegged as a sort of sissy boy and nerd, he isn’t able to make friends that easily. The only alliance he is really able to tentatively make is with Jimmy, a mixed blood Creek (apparently, he “reads” as an African American), who becomes the star of the basketball team during high school. The narrative shifts in viewpoint between Josh, Jimmy, and Josh’s Great Aunt, Lucille, who is introduced into the novel as a sort of intricate plot device that helps in a large bit of Muskogee Creek history. Much of the story, not surprisingly, deals with Josh’s burning desire for Jimmy, whom he finds difficult just to be around. Of course, Jimmy ends up conveniently homosexual as many of the boys they grow up with… On a personal level, I always find these narratives kind of bizarre because you see it sort of repeating in gay novels, the whole, I had a friend in childhood who ended up being gay and then they have some sort of love affair.

In any case, Lucille ends up being a sort of maternal grandmother with interesting stories, one that begins to infuse and infiltrate Josh’s life even after Lucille died in 1993 at a ripe old age. He begins to be able to do an interesting sort of time travel, suddenly appearing where his great Aunt was in a photograph and reliving moments in the past. At one point, he begins to understand the larger struggles of the Muskogee Creek as brought forth in particular by three men, Chitto Harjo (a kind of unofficial chief at the turn of the century, 1900) and two supporters, Sebhorn and Tarbie. At one point in the novel, the blending of past and present reaches a sort of apotheosis as Josh envisions himself and his now-lover, Jimmy as both Sebhorn and Tarbie (who themselves were in fact queer). In any case, the ending of the novel has a sort of surprise twist which is extremely sad but very pertinent to the genre that Womack is writing within, not only as an ethnic American text but also as a gay coming-of-age story.

In terms of the style, Womack has a brilliant eye for landscape, bringing forth a sense of Oklahoma’s rich floral life cycles. He also is fairly good at weaving an intricate family history that twines Josh and Jimmy to Aunt Lucille and Chitto Harjo all to the larger effect of creating the larger narrative of the Muskogee Creek Nation. At the ending of the story, as Josh and Jimmy take to a contemporary modern-day dance floor, and begin a traditional Muskogee dance, they are of course attempting to reclaim a past which has been ignored by them. In this way, it seems to fall into the kind of “homing” plot narrative, in the sense that things have sort of skipped a generation and returned to these grand-“children.” It is also in this sense that I was reminded of American Indian Literature and its connection to Asian American literature. Often times, you have to be able to read Asian American literature through the lens of particular ethnic groups rather than as a racial category. In Womack’s novel, he is not simply speaking to the American Indian tradition of homing plots or that, but also very specifically to the struggle of the Muskogee Creek to maintain tribal lands as Oklahaoma territory became divided up and turned into states of the Union. I’m not an expert in this particular history and its with that kind of amateurish eye that I bring this review to you all, my adoring fans.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that the prose was a bit clunky at times, and that the character (Jimmy especially) was a little one-dimensional. I also didn't get why he would switch form first to third person narrator in telling Josh's story.

I like Womack's literary criticism a lot better.

[danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

yes. yes yes yes. gay magical realism??? sign me up ! my freshman year intro to fiction course focused on native american literature, so this felt nicely full circle✨

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Native American author Craig Womack is Gay, as well as being of the Muscogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, and "Drowning in Fire" is his debut novel. He writes with depth and skill - this is a very good book. While some of the plot development would probably resonate more with LGBTQ readership, even that's not necessarily so. His characters are real and complex and well drawn. You feel for them. And I am a bit familiar with the towns in Oklahoma that are the setting, and that made it interesting as well for me. There are a few places where I got hung up and had to pay extra attention - his narrator leaps from one era to another, so much so as to magically place himself there in an experientially-real way. That, on top of his ability to "fly" - at least in his mind, is something you accept as a given by the last part of the novel. But it helps if you can let your mind time-travel with him!

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would definitely class this as a critically important book that unfortunately just didn't resonate with me a whole lot. Because I've read essentially no queer Native American literature, my expectations were (probably unrealistically) high of this book, which is an unfair burden for it to carry. The plot was interesting in the way it continually weaved back and forth through history, but I ended up getting lost and confused more times than not. Overall, I appreciate this book for shining a light on an oft-ignored subject area, but I personally just didn't love the characters and struggled with the narrative structure.

[Darian Lorrain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book falls into the trap of many duel perspective books in that if it had stuck with the character I really enjoyed, then the book would've been 5 stars, but I really struggled to get through some of the chapters that focused on the other character so that knocked down my overall star rating.

The book was still a great read though and if you're just reading this for fun, know that each chapter is more or less self contained, so if you are struggling, I recommend skipping that chapter rather than giving up on the book entirely.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleased to learn that my first year Indigenous Studies prof published this novel 20 years ago (not too long after I took that course)! I quite liked this book. It is the story of Jimmy and Josh, two queer Indigenous boys/young men (the story spans over 20 years in their lives) as well as Lucy, Josh’s great aunt in her own childhood. I liked both storylines as well as the history and traditional stories in this book, but sometimes felt they could have all been woven together more as it sometimes felt disjointed. Then again, the author teaches literature classes so maybe I just didn’t get some of the interconnections? Either way, this is definitely a worthwhile read!

[Paige B · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is unlike any book i’ve ever read before. there’s a lot you have to know about native american laws and beliefs to even start to remotely understand this book and it was a lot of fun to discuss in class.
super interesting and unique story written in a way i’ve never seen before but really enjoyed. i think the beginning of the book was stronger than the end but i still liked it all the same. could get a little wordy at times but it wasn’t pointless wordiness.
if you’re feeling bored with your usual reads i highly recommend this one

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a devastatingly beautiful book. Womack so expertly traces an Indigenous queerness that is specific to Creek traditional knowledge and ongoing survivance. He proves that to be Creek and queer is not an anomaly, and is certainly not a "modern" additive to Creek personhood. Instead, the queerness in this text is both ancient and alive in the present, and inherently tied to Creek sovereignty. Josh and Jimmy's love is of fire and water: informed by Creek stories of survival and love.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is a very important book, and is much needed within the sphere of queer literature, just from a personal standpoint it’s not something I enjoyed a ton one way or the other, although I do recognize what it was doing and I think it does it well!

[Mindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a reread after 18 years and I was amazed by how much I'd forgotten about this book! So much to unpack: sexuality, identity, ethnicity, indigeneity, sovereignty, religion, storytelling, history, and more!

[Mia]

Abandoned at 190.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread Craig's novel and, second time around, this story about growing up gay in rural Creek Oklahoma is EVEN BETTER.

[Tallon Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this novel 8/10

[Leann J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.25 stars

cw // racial slurs, homophobic slurs

[Neal Hampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing.

[Abigail Kelleher · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Willow Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite possibly the oddest novel I have ever read. Not sure if it's a "good" representation of either queer or indigenous literature but it sure is something.

[toria 🍃🌷 · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bit slow but worth the read! loved a lot of elements in this, but the pacing felt off and there was never any massive “aha!” or payoff moment for me

[Ethan Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Near the beginning of the novel, the main character Josh becomes trapped on a rouge fishing line while swimming and nearly drowns. That sets us up for the rest of the story - these characters are trapped and drowning in their friendships, jobs, religion, illness, families…trapped by the white imperialists and our tortuous land contracts. Even the central love story has claustrophobic quality stemming from an etiolated undertone of pure need, and an even more subterranean understanding that some needs can never be met. Part of me wishes I could’ve read this the way other reviewers on this site apparently have; to me, the ending is not exactly a “love conquers all” scenario. What does conquer all: Josh finds ambiguous liberation in his Creek heritage - it connects him to an otherworldly, almost metaphysical tradition that transcends time, space, law, death, and all of the other trappings ready to drown him. Very powerful.

Tl;Dr there is a criminal dearth of first-person fictional portrayals of indigenous queers.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

All except one chunk is 4.5, that chunk is like 3
But yes overall so amazing and moving

[Shay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The annoying narrator award goes to Josh whathisface