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The Bone Whistle
Young, brash Darly can't overcome her anger at a father she never knew. Viv, her secretive mother, can't get over the man himself. What Darly doesn't know, and what Viv refuses to tell her, is that her father is not of human blood. One of the elusive wanaghi, the fey-like folk who live beneath the Dakotan hills, he left Viv to return to his own kind before realizing that she would bear his child. When the gift of a bone whistle brings Darly's father to her, she finally discovers who he is. She decides, against her mother's advice, to follow him to his land under the hills. There she meets the rest of her family . . . and a young man who steals her heart. Even knowing the dangers, Darly can't help but fall in love and into the intriques of the wanaghi.
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 8, 2010
Eva Swan, The Bone Whistle (Juno Books, 2007)
One of the real crimes of recent book history has been Pocket's decision not to reprint a large number of Juno titles when they bought the imprint from Prime. (According to Juno's current website, just six of Juno's thirty-three extant titles have been reprinted as “Pocket/Juno” books.) Anyone who's followed Prime over the years is well aware of the impeccable taste they show in manuscripts; Sonya Taaffe, Catherynne Valente, Janelle Ferreira, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Paul Tremblay, Anna Tambour, K. J. Bishop, and a host of other brilliant writers either got their start with Prime or found a home there eventually. Add to the list Eva Swan (pen name of Erzebet Yellowboy, head of Papaveria Press), whose first novel, The Bone Whistle, is one of the Juno titles that Pocket seems content to let fade into obscurity.
The Bone Whistle focuses on Darly, a sixteen-year-old living in Denver with her mother. Things are going as well as can be expected for a high-school girl (who gets dumped by her boyfriend as the book opens), except for one thing: for two weeks every summer, Darly's mother drags her out to the Lakota reservation in the Dakotas, a place where there's nothing but a circle of dusty huts. No videogames, no TV, nothing but prairie and the occasional hill. It's enough to drive a teen nuts. The only thing out there worth thinking about is Darly's grandfather, and this time Grandpa, sensing that Darly's restiveness is worse than usual, gives her a present—a bone whistle he tells her to use when she feels it necessary. Soon enough, she finds herself confronting a rattlesnake and uses the whistle. She's rescued by someone who seems to just pop out of nowhere, and starts wondering just what's going on in this place. After all, something has to be drawing her mother back year after year...
The coming-of-age story has been done a million times in every flavor you can think of. Lord knows it's been done in fantasy literature; it's probably been done a hundred times this decade alone, and some of the game's heaviest hitters (Harry Potter, Twilight, Eragon) have all delved into this same subgenre. Given that, why would you read yet another young adult coming-of-age novel? Well, for one thing, because only one of those big series is actually worth your time. For another, The Bone Whistle stands out in a sea of heavy hitters for its brevity; it's a standalone novel of just two hundred twenty-four pages in a market that's saturated with doorstops. This is a book you could put away in a couple of days, which makes it perfect for between-classes reading. (It's also much lighter than anything J. K. Rowling has ever released by at least two or three pounds.) But these are all surface considerations. Have you ever noticed that stuff that's put out by smaller companies is usually of a higher quality than stuff put out by huge corporations? Think about a Quarter Pounder compared to a burger that you'd get at the little mom-and-pop place down the street. With the Quarter Pounder, you can go to any Burger King in America (maybe even on the planet), order a Quarter Pounder, and you'll always get the same thing. And your Quarter Pounder isn't that much different than the Big Mac you'll get at McDonald's across the street. But every little mom-and-pop greasy spoon makes an entirely different burger. The spice mix is different, the amount of egg and/or breadcrumbs, the type of bun, the toppings that come by default. Try getting a burger on a whole wheat bun topped with peanut butter and red onion at a big chain.
That turned out to be an insanely long digression, but the point is that little books like this are the mom-and-pop burger joints of the literary world. They don't hold to the conventions you find in the massive conglomerates like Harry Potter Inc. Ignore 'em, pretty much. And because of that, you may find yourself in the same subgenre having a completely different experience. Swan's characters are finely-tuned and well-developed, her subject matter gets much more into what some would consider “adult” territory (though it remains as innocent as one would expect in a young adult fantasy novel), and she's got a damn good story to lay over it all. Yes, things to get a touch predictable now and again, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
What is a bad thing is your ability to get this in your local bookstore, which is probably “nil”. (Think of mom-and-pop bookstores the same way you think of mom-and-pop burger joints. The inventory at any Borders in the country looks remarkably similar...) Special-ordering it will take a few days, but if Pocket sees special orders for the book coming in, they may rethink this decision to let so many Juno titles fade into nothingness. And as with anything Prime, this is worth your money. *** ½
One of the real crimes of recent book history has been Pocket's decision not to reprint a large number of Juno titles when they bought the imprint from Prime. (According to Juno's current website, just six of Juno's thirty-three extant titles have been reprinted as “Pocket/Juno” books.) Anyone who's followed Prime over the years is well aware of the impeccable taste they show in manuscripts; Sonya Taaffe, Catherynne Valente, Janelle Ferreira, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Paul Tremblay, Anna Tambour, K. J. Bishop, and a host of other brilliant writers either got their start with Prime or found a home there eventually. Add to the list Eva Swan (pen name of Erzebet Yellowboy, head of Papaveria Press), whose first novel, The Bone Whistle, is one of the Juno titles that Pocket seems content to let fade into obscurity.
The Bone Whistle focuses on Darly, a sixteen-year-old living in Denver with her mother. Things are going as well as can be expected for a high-school girl (who gets dumped by her boyfriend as the book opens), except for one thing: for two weeks every summer, Darly's mother drags her out to the Lakota reservation in the Dakotas, a place where there's nothing but a circle of dusty huts. No videogames, no TV, nothing but prairie and the occasional hill. It's enough to drive a teen nuts. The only thing out there worth thinking about is Darly's grandfather, and this time Grandpa, sensing that Darly's restiveness is worse than usual, gives her a present—a bone whistle he tells her to use when she feels it necessary. Soon enough, she finds herself confronting a rattlesnake and uses the whistle. She's rescued by someone who seems to just pop out of nowhere, and starts wondering just what's going on in this place. After all, something has to be drawing her mother back year after year...
The coming-of-age story has been done a million times in every flavor you can think of. Lord knows it's been done in fantasy literature; it's probably been done a hundred times this decade alone, and some of the game's heaviest hitters (Harry Potter, Twilight, Eragon) have all delved into this same subgenre. Given that, why would you read yet another young adult coming-of-age novel? Well, for one thing, because only one of those big series is actually worth your time. For another, The Bone Whistle stands out in a sea of heavy hitters for its brevity; it's a standalone novel of just two hundred twenty-four pages in a market that's saturated with doorstops. This is a book you could put away in a couple of days, which makes it perfect for between-classes reading. (It's also much lighter than anything J. K. Rowling has ever released by at least two or three pounds.) But these are all surface considerations. Have you ever noticed that stuff that's put out by smaller companies is usually of a higher quality than stuff put out by huge corporations? Think about a Quarter Pounder compared to a burger that you'd get at the little mom-and-pop place down the street. With the Quarter Pounder, you can go to any Burger King in America (maybe even on the planet), order a Quarter Pounder, and you'll always get the same thing. And your Quarter Pounder isn't that much different than the Big Mac you'll get at McDonald's across the street. But every little mom-and-pop greasy spoon makes an entirely different burger. The spice mix is different, the amount of egg and/or breadcrumbs, the type of bun, the toppings that come by default. Try getting a burger on a whole wheat bun topped with peanut butter and red onion at a big chain.
That turned out to be an insanely long digression, but the point is that little books like this are the mom-and-pop burger joints of the literary world. They don't hold to the conventions you find in the massive conglomerates like Harry Potter Inc. Ignore 'em, pretty much. And because of that, you may find yourself in the same subgenre having a completely different experience. Swan's characters are finely-tuned and well-developed, her subject matter gets much more into what some would consider “adult” territory (though it remains as innocent as one would expect in a young adult fantasy novel), and she's got a damn good story to lay over it all. Yes, things to get a touch predictable now and again, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
What is a bad thing is your ability to get this in your local bookstore, which is probably “nil”. (Think of mom-and-pop bookstores the same way you think of mom-and-pop burger joints. The inventory at any Borders in the country looks remarkably similar...) Special-ordering it will take a few days, but if Pocket sees special orders for the book coming in, they may rethink this decision to let so many Juno titles fade into nothingness. And as with anything Prime, this is worth your money. *** ½
May 26, 2011
“The Bone Whistle” by Eva Swan is a creative juxtaposition of traditional Native American culture to modern society. The main character, Darly, is caught up in her modern world and bored with being forced to revisit her ancestral home every summer with her mother. Despite the mystery surrounding her roots, she is sullen and withdrawn, until she runs into an intriguing stranger who takes her and the reader into a tempestuous world where ancestral traditions struggle to survive.
What draws the reader into the story is the closeness of the parallel universe, separated only by a cave in the mountain. Reminiscent of the wardrobe to Narnia, the cave invites one to explore an entirely new world on the other side, coexisting with the world in which we live.
Classic iconic struggles between two opposing forces, and the lack of clarity over which is the “good” or “evil” side, take the reader along with Darly on a journey of intrigue and self-discovery.
What draws the reader into the story is the closeness of the parallel universe, separated only by a cave in the mountain. Reminiscent of the wardrobe to Narnia, the cave invites one to explore an entirely new world on the other side, coexisting with the world in which we live.
Classic iconic struggles between two opposing forces, and the lack of clarity over which is the “good” or “evil” side, take the reader along with Darly on a journey of intrigue and self-discovery.
May 15, 2024
This book was so breathtaking. I finished it in a few days of intense reading. If this book happens to cross your path at the used bookstore, check it out. My Dad and I both loved it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews