Yellowbird

by Judy R. Smith

Judy R. Smith's Yellowbird was the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award recipient. David Lynn, editor of the prestigious Kenyon Review notes, "Yellowbird is a marvelous achievement--full of wit, invention, and emotional power. There is a wildness of spirit here and a searing honesty. I was entirely caught up while reading Yellowbird and only reluctantly came to the end." University of Oklahoma Professor of English and Native American Studies, Geary Hobson, writes, "Have you ever found yourself carefully scrutinizing mid-19th Century daguerreotypes--as if halfway expecting the cut of Prince Albert topcoats and the stylish flair of ribbon clusters of the clothing of the well-dressed fathers and mothers and their children will somehow reveal what the faces aren't offering, what they can't offer? Yellowbird, with its several strands of intricately woven narratives of a past century's voices, is just such a similar act, one in which the reader is not only rewarded with a deeper and clearer understanding of the people in that olden day, but also of our own century and its multi-faceted assemblage of voices and faces." Yellowbird is an important collection, essential for readers of Native American Studies, fiction, and women's studies. Yellowbird weaves together three an entirely fictional Yellowbird, Algonquin mystic; a partly autobiographical Sophia Peabody Hawthorne; and a mostly fictional Lizzie Shaw Melville.

188 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2007

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

My honors thesis advisor from Kenyon sent me an email a few months back, announcing the fact that this book had been published and won the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award. So I ordered it from the Tattered Cover, and summer means this teacher can yet again read.

This was an interesting book. I don't tend to search out books like these, where time and even narrator shifts, where the story-telling is more episodic, in vignettes, than one narrative. But I think that's kind of th epoint with this book. Either Sophia Peabody Hawthorne (semi-based on the historical figure) or Lizzie Shaw Melville (barely based on a historical figure) or Yellowbird, the sagacious keeper of native history (completely fictional) relates the episodes.

This is, I think, a book about Woman and her relationship to the world and its demands, be those the demands of a husband, of creativity, or of history. It is a meditation on personality and character, art and sex, and what it is to be American. The more I let the book settle in, the more I like it.

That said, as a Kenyon English major, I loved reading about what my former professor thinks about such bastions of the canon as Melville and Hawthorne. Behind every good man ... but behind every literary genius?

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my book club, since Judy is a Kenyon professor and will be coming to speak to our club about the novel. It's a very densely written book, although short. It intertwines three stories, of varying degrees of fiction, of Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mrs. Herman Melville, and a Native American deity. I found parts of it fascinating and parts of it too difficult to follow clearly. The book weaves many of Judy's professional and personal interests together in a distinctive way, and I look forward to hearing her talk about how she developed her ideas.

[gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had lunch with Judy at Gambier deli a week ago. She is an excellent writer who has had her next book accepted for publication.
Yellowbird is an interesting,but challenging read.