In the Night of Memory
A Novel
Published on 30. June 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-5179-0651-1 (ISBN)
Description
Winner: Northeastern Minnesota Book Award - Fiction
Upper Peninsula Publishers & Authors Association U.P. Notable Book Award?
Two lost sisters find family, and themselves, among the voices of an Ojibwe reservation
When Loretta surrenders her young girls to the county and then disappears, she becomes one more missing Native woman in Indian Country's long devastating history of loss. But she is also a daughter of the Mozhay Point Reservation in northern Minnesota and the mother of Azure and Rain, ages 3 and 4, and her absence haunts all the lives she has touched-and all the stories they tell in this novel. In the Night of Memory returns to the fictional reservation of Linda LeGarde Grover's previous award-winning books, introducing readers to a new generation of the Gallette family as Azure and Rain make their way home.
After a string of foster placements, from cold to kind to cruel, the girls find their way back to their extended Mozhay family, and a new set of challenges, and stories, unfolds. Deftly, Grover conjures a chorus of women's voices (sensible, sensitive Azure's first among them) to fill in the sorrows and joys, the loves and the losses that have brought the girls and their people to this moment. Though reconciliation is possible, some ruptures simply cannot be repaired; they can only be lived through, or lived with. In the Night of Memory creates a nuanced, moving, often humorous picture of two Ojibwe girls becoming women in light of this lesson learned in the long, sharply etched shadow of Native American history.
Upper Peninsula Publishers & Authors Association U.P. Notable Book Award?
Two lost sisters find family, and themselves, among the voices of an Ojibwe reservation
When Loretta surrenders her young girls to the county and then disappears, she becomes one more missing Native woman in Indian Country's long devastating history of loss. But she is also a daughter of the Mozhay Point Reservation in northern Minnesota and the mother of Azure and Rain, ages 3 and 4, and her absence haunts all the lives she has touched-and all the stories they tell in this novel. In the Night of Memory returns to the fictional reservation of Linda LeGarde Grover's previous award-winning books, introducing readers to a new generation of the Gallette family as Azure and Rain make their way home.
After a string of foster placements, from cold to kind to cruel, the girls find their way back to their extended Mozhay family, and a new set of challenges, and stories, unfolds. Deftly, Grover conjures a chorus of women's voices (sensible, sensitive Azure's first among them) to fill in the sorrows and joys, the loves and the losses that have brought the girls and their people to this moment. Though reconciliation is possible, some ruptures simply cannot be repaired; they can only be lived through, or lived with. In the Night of Memory creates a nuanced, moving, often humorous picture of two Ojibwe girls becoming women in light of this lesson learned in the long, sharply etched shadow of Native American history.
Reviews / Votes
"With In the Night of Memory, Linda LeGarde Grover offers us a gift of story across generations of Native American women. This book examines what it means to grow up poor, grow up female, and grow up in a place that should be home but feels far from belonging. Grover creates a tapestry of history and imagination, a weaving of perspectives beautiful and wise, a collection of truths that anchors and honors the experiences of Indigenous women."-Kao Kalia Yang, author of The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father"In the Night of Memory is a moving story of loss and recovery in Native America. Linda LeGarde Grover has created fully realized characters pushed to the margins of their own lives but who, nevertheless, manage to live on their own terms. Riding on the wave of this poignant novel are some of the most important issues affecting American Indians today, including the loss of family and heritage and the destruction and disappearance of American Indian women. A remarkable achievement."-David Treuer
"Once again Linda LeGarde Grover skillfully knots together the lives of Anishinaabeg connected to the fictional Mozhay Point Reservation. Like lace, the knotted pattern has gaps, absence, loss, and a design because of what-because of who-is missing. Set across decades and told through generations of relatives, In the Night of Memory mirrors actual history, from government removal of American Indian children to our current crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States and Canada. The intimate and interested narrative voices carry the readers, keeping them witnessing and understanding how what happened in the past never stops happening-and continues to impact communities today."-Heid Erdrich
"I love this book! What a beautiful story of love and loss-from the pain of intergenerational effects to the trauma of the child welfare system to the hopefulness of community re-engagement. I felt an instant connection with the poetically named Rainfall Dawn and Azure Sky, and their mother Loretta, too. The whole family lived and breathed on the page and filled me right up as if I were there with them. I was sad to finish this one."-Katherena Vermette, author of The Break
"In the Night of Memory is character driven and lyrical. Its vast, distinct chorus of matrilineal American Indian voices ring in melancholic yet dauntless tones, clarifying that community and nurturing can ameliorate absence."-Foreword Reviews, starred review
"This coming of age story brings together themes of missing women, family and community, complicated histories and collective wisdoms."-Ms. Magazine
"The tragic legacy of Indian boarding schools, including Rainy's fetal alcohol syndrome, hovers over Grover's sad but ultimately uplifting tale."-Booklist
"Told with vibrancy by an Ojibwe professor and poet, this own voices story of Ojibwe girls in a situation only too common for indigenous families shouldn't be missed."-Library Journal
"Readers will come to love the strong, capable women who tell their stories here, from Azure and Rain to Dolly, with whom the girls live after they return to the reservation, their cousin Artense and women who remember Loretta as a neglected child."-Twin Cities Pioneer Press
"With gorgeous imagery and verdant prose, LeGarde Grover's novel lays bare the pain and loss of indigenous women and children while simultaneously offering a ray of hope."-Publishers Weekly
"A gorgeously written story of inherited trauma and inherited resilience."-Shondaland
"Powerful and moving. This is a tale of loss, of caring for others who cannot care for themselves, of trying to right a past that is deeply wrong, and of acceptance that life is never easy. It's a tale of how, despite life's hardships, people continue to hope, find happiness, try to find where they belong, and learn to be grateful for what few good things come into their lives."-Marquette Monthly
"A must read for students and scholars alike. Grover's ability to connect historical trauma to the problems currently facing Indigenous women are outstanding and her attention to detail creates a lasting connection to the story."-Tribal College
"In the Night of Memory is a novel you won't want to put down once you've read the first page." -Ely Summer Times
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
264 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5179-0651-1 (9781517906511)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Book
04/2019
University of Minnesota Press
€42.27
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Person
Linda LeGarde Grover is professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe. Her novel The Road Back to Sweetgrass (Minnesota, 2014) received the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Fiction Award as well as the Native Writers Circle of the Americas First Book Award. The Dance Boots, a book of stories, received the Flannery O'Connor Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and her poetry collection The Sky Watched: Poems of Ojibwe Lives received the Red Mountain Press Editor's Award and the 2017 Northeastern Minnesota Book Award for Poetry. Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year (Minnesota, 2017) won the 2018 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction and the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award.
Content
Contents
The Surrender of Children
Miskwaa
Mesabi
Duluth
Tannenbaum Green
Golden Manor
Moccasin Flower
The Surrender of Children
Miskwaa
Mesabi
Duluth
Tannenbaum Green
Golden Manor
Moccasin Flower