That Guy Wolf Dancing

American Indian Studies (AIS)

by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

From one of the writers of the twentieth-century Native American Literary Renaissance comes a remarkable tale about how to acknowledge the past and take a chance on the future. Rooted in tribal-world consciousness, That Guy Wolf Dancing is the story of a young tribal wolf-man becoming a part of his not-sonatural world of non-tribal people. Twenty-something Philip Big Pipe disappears from an unsettled life he can hardly tolerate and ends up in an off-reservation town. When he leaves, he doesn’t tell anyone where he is going or what his plans, if he has any, might be. Having never taken himself too seriously, he now faces a world that feels very foreign to him. As he struggles to adapt to the modern universe, Philip, ever a “wolf dancer,” must improvise, this time to a sound others provide for him. Like the wolf, Philip sometimes feels hunted, outrun, verging on extinction. Only by moving rhythmically in a dissident, dangerous, and iconic world can Philip Big Pipe let go of the past and craft a new future.

130 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (born 1930 in Fort Thompson, South Dakota) is a Crow Creek Lakota editor, essayist, poet, novelist, and academic, whose trenchant views on Native American politics, particularly tribal sovereignty, have caused controversy.

Cook-Lynn co-founded Wíčazo Ša Review ("Red Pencil"), an academic journal devoted to the development of Native American studies as an academic discipline. She retired from her long academic career at Eastern Washington University in 1993, returning to her home in Rapid City, South Dakota. She has held several visiting professorships since retirement. In 2009, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was curious to see how Cook-Lynn, an accomplished author of perceptive and challenging academic essays on indigeneity and decolonization, would approach writing a novel. "That Guy Wolf Dancing" shows she can write powerful novels. The narrative and characters are compelling. We're given a deep and nuanced insight into the inner and outer life of Philip BigPipe as he encounters the personal and cultural challenges of being an indigenous man working as a care-giver in an off-reservation hospital. Serious and painful issues are raised and dealt with in the novel, but not in a didactic way. Viewing those issues from Philip BigPipe's perspective we're shown that the issues are not abstract ideas, they are the very life lived by human beings. It left me with difficult questions about of how historical trauma affects the generations of both the colonized and the colonizer, who is responsible and accountable, and whether redemption and repair are possible.

[Suzi Home maker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great fictional novella that draws from real lived experiences of Native Americans, this book pairs well with text that describes the events that happened with European invasion.

I highly recommend this book for anybody that seeks to better understand the values and relationships of indigenous people.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

HCN Fall 2014 Reading List. Too much rumination, too little dialog and action for my taste, but interesting story and glad I read it.