Indian Summers

by Eric Gansworth

The first work of fiction published in the new Native American Series, Indian Summers concerns issues of identity for Native Americans. Set against the backdrop of a contemporary reservation that has had its own losses to the dominant culture -- a third of its total land mass taken earlier in the century for a New York State water reservoir, its only religious structures Christian churches -- Indian Summers introduces these identity conflicts through the lives and circumstances of its major characters. This is a time when belonging to a tribe is difficult, when dominant societal forces encourage either the acts of abandoning a perceived anachronistic lifestyle or of embracing one of a number of simplistic, prescribed, false identities: warrior, environmentalist, crystal-carrying shaman. None of these options is real for the individuals who populate these pockets of different -- not alternative -- societies. The people who live these lives do not explore alternatives, nor do they necessarily have the desire to -- inextricably entwined as they are with their families, culture, history, and land.

220 pp — ©1998