Friday, August 31, 2012

Book Beginnings: Fortune's Deadly Descent


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING








I close my eyes.
 --  Fortune's Deadly Descent by Audry Braun.  That's a pretty short opening sentence that doesn't tell much. But it immediately gets very interesting because the heroine closes her eyes to be hypnotized by an Interpol investigator trying to help her remember her son's kidnapping. And we're off!

This is the second in a series that started with A Small Fortune.  If this one is even half the rip-roaring fun of the first, it's going to be a hit.

Braun is the pen name of novelist Deborah Reed, author of Carry Yourself Back to Me, a Best Book of 2011 Amazon Editors' Pick.


MORE LINKS

My Rose City Reader review of A Small Fortune
My Rose City Reader review of Carry Yourself Back to Me
My Rose City Reader interview of Audry Braun
The Deborah Reed/Audry Braun website





Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Teaser Tuesday & GIVEAWAY: Public Trust



She wore a brown and orange wrap, with a South American or tropical design -- he wasn't sure which. In one hand she held a bottle of red wine and a plastic goblet, in the other, a bouquet of maidenhair fern and scarlet and yellow monkey flowers.

-- Public Trust by J. M. Mitchell.  This is mystery with a National Park story-line.  It has a romance going too, as you can see in this scene . . . .  

Thanks go to book publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek for my copy, and copies for a giveaway!

THE GIVEAWAY

This is a "leap-frog" giveaway.  This means that I have three (3!) copies to giveaway to Rose City Reader readers, and each winner will get to host another giveaway for an additional copy.

The contest is for readers in the USA and Canada and is open until Labor Day Monday, September 3, 2012. There are five ways to enter and each one is worth a chance to win.  To enter, do any or all of the following, but you must leave a comment for each one:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include a way to contact you (email or website address in your comment or available in your profile). If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway.
Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable. Leave a separate comment with a link to your post. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to my rss feed, follow me on blogger, or subscribe via email (or tell me if you already are a subscriber or follower). Leave a separate comment for this. (1 entry)

4. Tweet this post on Twitter.
Leave me a separate comment with your twitter user name. (1 entry)

5. Post this on facebook, pin it on Pinterest, Stumble it, digg it, technorati fave it, or otherwise put it out there in the social network. Leave a separate comment with a link or explaination. (1 entry)

There are a lot of ways to enter (maximum of five entries), but you must LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT for each one or they will not count. I will use random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is open to entries from the U.S. and Canada only. The deadline for entry is 9:00 PM, Pacific Time, on Labor Day Monday, September 3, 2012. I will draw and post the winner's name in my Teaser Tuesday post for September 4, 2012.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 



Sunday, August 26, 2012

Mailbox Monday


Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

The team at 5 Minutes for Books is hosting in August.  Please stop by this eclectic group blog to find dozens of reviews and several giveaways.
I got one book last week that I really wanted:



Fortune's Deadly Descent by Audry Braun

This is the second in a series that started with A Small Fortune.  If this one is even half the rip-roaring fun of the first, it's going to be a hit.

Braun is the pen name of novelist Deborah Reed, author of Carry Yourself Back to Me, a Best Book of 2011 Amazon Editors' Pick.

MORE LINKS

My Rose City Reader review of A Small Fortune
My Rose City Reader review of Carry Yourself Back to Me
My Rose City Reader interview of Audry Braun
The Deborah Reed/Audry Braun website



Saturday, August 25, 2012

2012 Challenge Completed! Battle of the Prizes, American Version


Having finished and reviewed my second National Book Award winner, I have now completed the 2012 Battle of the Prizes, American Version.

This challenge pits winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction against the winners of the National Book Award. Participants can read one Pulitzer winner, one National winner, and one double dipper, or read two of each.  The challenge runs through January 2013, so there is still time to sign up!

My Pulitzer choices:
My National choices:
I am still trying to decide whether to host again in 2013, but assuming I do, I already have a list of possible books from my TBR shelves:

Pulitzer possibilities include:
National possibilities include:

For details about the challenge or to sign up, please visit the challenge page, here, or click the page tab in the bar at the top of the blog. 

Friday, August 24, 2012

Book Beginnings: Public Trust


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING


 "Please, promise me they won't let it burn," the woman said."  
-- Public Trust by J. M. Mitchell.  This is mystery with a National Park story-line.  Of course, if it starts off with a forest fire, it is immediately captivating. 

Thanks go to book publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek for my copy.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Review: Witness

 


Whittaker Chambers was an American communist and Soviet spy who broke with the Communist Party in 1938 and later denounced the other members of his underground cell to the House Un-American Activities Committee and a New York grand jury. His testimony eventually lead to the 1950 perjury conviction of Alger Hiss and launched a decades-long battle between the Left and Right over which man was the real villain. The controversy seems to have petered out, at least in the mainstream, since both the US Russia released formerly-classified Cold War records identifying Hiss as a Soviet agent.

In 1952, Chambers published Witness, his autobiography and apologia. Starting with his childhood, Chambers explains his attraction to communism, his involvement in the communist movement in America – first in the open party as an organizer and writer for the Daily Worker, later in the underground – how his growing Christian faith lead to his break from the party, and how his Quaker principles lead to his testimony against his former fellow-travelers.

Chambers spent ten years as a writer and editor for Time Magazine, so he knew how to wield a pen. His story is organized, his arguments persuasive, and his writing is moving, sometimes even beautiful. The drawback is that Chambers took his serious subject seriously – there is not a glimmer of humor in the whole 800 pages. Still, it is an amazing story and much of it reads like a spy thriller, well, an egg-heady spy thriller. 

Witness isn't a quick or easy read, but as a first-hand account of a fascinating episode in American history, it is worth the effort. Christopher Caldwell summed it up well when describing the book:

Confession, history, potboiler -- by a man who writes like the literary giant we would know him as, had not Communism got him first.

OTHER REVIEWS

Cindy Simpson for American Thinker (2010)
Brothers Judd (2001)

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

Witness is on the National Review list of Top 100 Non-Fiction Books of the 20th Century.  It counts for several of my 2012 challenges: Chunkster, Tea & Books, Mt. TBR, Off the Shelf, TBR Pile, and Memorable Memoirs.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Review: Mr. Sammler's Planet

 

There's a reason why Mr. Sammler's Planet doesn't spring first to mind when making a list of favorite or best known Saul Bellow novels. People tend to mention The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Seize the Day, or Henderson the Rain King, but not Mr. Sammler's Planet, even though it won the National Book Award in 1971.

Mr. Sammler's Planet is not an easy novel, either to read or review. It has a typical Bellow plot, simple, funny, and shaggy, and a typical Bellow collection of wonderful, overblown characters. Here, Artur Sammler is an elderly, one-eyed Holocaust survivor and former minor member of London's Bloomsbury Set, living in Manhattan on the largesse of a nostalgic nephew, under the haphazard housekeeping care of a loony daughter and a couple of nieces, and attracting the attention of screwball hucksters, an Indian professor with theories of colonizing the moon, and a sharply dressed pickpocket with a peculiar method of intimidation.

But, also typical of Bellow's books, it is a novel of ideas – in this case dense and unrelenting ideas about the degradation of social mores, the philosophical underpinnings of human suffering, and the existence of God. That's a lot to get through in 285 pages.  And it is difficult to know how Sammler's ideas fit together or where they end up.  As the 1970 New York Times review noted:

There is something appealingly elegiac about Sammler. The book is not only his swan song, but civilization's as we once knew it. With his minutely articulated ideas as his only tools, Sammler is something like a watchmaker tinkering with the huge and faulty mechanism of modern life. And though he may not succeed in putting it back in working order, it is both moving and instructive to see him try.
Dedicated Bellow fans may end up adding Mr. Sammler's Planet to their personal list of Bellow's best, but newcomers may want to start with one of his more accessible books.

OTHER REVIEWS


Commentary Magazine (1970)
New York Times (1970)

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

Mr. Sammler's Planet counts as one of my National Book Award choices for the 2012 Battle of the Prizes, American Version.   With this one, I've now completed the challenge. Woo hoo!

It also counts for the Mt. TBR and Off the Shelf challenges, the TBR Pile challenge, and my "sky" choice for the What's in a Name challenge

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Teaser Tuesday: Swan Peak




He was standing at the far end of the bar, knocking back shots from a bottle of Jack Daniel's, chasing it with a can of Bud. The customers who come back into the club were avoiding him, and so was the bartender.
-- Swan Peak by James Lee Burke. Sounds like Dave Robicheaux's buddy, Clete Purcell, is heading for trouble. Again.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 



Monday, August 20, 2012

Mailbox Monday


Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

The team at 5 Minutes for Books is hosting in August.  Please stop by this eclectic group blog to find dozens of reviews and several giveaways.

A new LibraryThing Early Reviewer book showed up last week:




Meat Eater: Adventures From the Life of an American Hunter by Steven Rinella.  I asked for this one because it sounds fascinating.  Rinella's essays look at the role of hunters in American history and argues that hunting is "one of the most ethically responsible things a carnivore can do."  I can't say I'm ready to start shooting my own food, but he may have a point.

The author grew up in Michigan, so as a big Jim Harrison fan, I am looking forward to seeing if this non-fiction overlaps with Harrison's hunting themes. 

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Author Interview: Michael Murphy


Michael Murphy is an Arizona author with eight novels under his belt. He loves deserts, mountains, lakes and Arizona's "wacky politics"; raises urban chickens; and tries to weave humor through the stories he tells.

Murphy's newest book, Goodby Emily, is the roadtrip adventure of a middle-aged professor and his two buddies going back to Woodstock to scatter his wife's ashes where they had met decades before.



Goodby Emily is available for pre-order now and is scheduled for release in January.  But since this is the anniversary week of the original Woodstock festival, it seems like a good time to interview the author!

How did you come to write Goodbye, Emily?

I wanted to write a novel that realistically portrays people Baby Boomers in a realistic manner, funny, sexually active and optimistic about the future. Each of the main characters has problems to address, but they maintain an idealism rooted in the roadtrip they took to Woodstock. Sure there’s sex, drugs and rock and roll, but mostly it’s a tender look back to sixties.

Do you have a personal connection with Woodstock? What led you to write a novel centered on returning to Woodstock?

I worked with a woman named Louise Castro for ten years. I never knew she’d attended Woodstock until her last day at work after she’d come down with cancer. I wrote the novel for Louise.

How much of your novel is based on true, historical events? 

About a third of the novel is told in flashback to Woodstock, the music, the mud—I’ve apparently painted a realistic portrayal as two Woodstock icons, Country Joe McDonald and Wavy Gravy read advance copies and loved it! Joe said:
Michael Murphy's novel, Goodbye Emily is an entertaining and poignant adventure. Well written and easy to read. The book revisits the Woodstock Music Festival through the minds and lives of several men who were there and plan to return to the original site. All characters have their own reasons for the journey but it is easy for anyone of that generation to identify with them and their struggle to deal with present and the past. A very enjoyable and timely and fun read. It is a great book but would also make one hell of a great movie.
Wavy said, “What we have in mind is a sweet look back at the good old days. We must have been in heaven, man.”

What did you learn from writing your book – either about the subject of the book or the writing process – that most surprised you? 

Surprisingly, perhaps, it wasn’t about Woodstock. I learned a lot about Broken Heart Syndrome, an actual medical condition that one of my characters is dealing with. The medical term is stress cardiomyopathy that often leads to death after one has dealt with a tragic loss in their life. The other thing I learned a great deal about was Alzheimers.

What is the most valuable advice you’ve been given as an author? 

Enjoy the ride. We often get involved in marketing and promoting our books (that’s work) and forget about the joy of portraying a world we created. I advise other writers not to neglect the work of selling their books, but never forget why you became a writer.

What do you do to promote your books? Do you use social networking sites or other internet resources?

Social networking is important. I’m active on Facebook and Twitter and I started a Goodbye Emily blog that will focus on different Woodstock performers and where they are now. I also teach novel writing workshops with my mentor Toby Heathcotte called You Too Can Write a Novel.

Do you have any events coming up to promote your book? 

Goodbye Emily was written about and for Baby Boomers, so I wrote a recent where-are-they-now? article for a Boomer magazine, Boomer Café. I’m focusing on putting together a list of book reviewers who attended Woodstock and hopefully a few more performers. And as the release date draws near, I’ll begin a blog tour.

Who are your three (or four or five) favorite authors? Is your own writing influenced by who you read? 

My favorite author is Nelson DeMille. I try to emulate his humor in my writing. I love Dennis Lehane for his characterizations and Dean Koontz for his ability to visually capture scenes.

THANKS MICHAEL! And good luck with your new book!


Friday, August 17, 2012

Book Beginnings: Swan Peak


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING



Clete Purcel had heard of people who sleep without dreaming, but either because of the era and neighborhood in which he had grown up, or the later experiences that had come to define his life, he could not think of sleep as anything other than an uncontrolled descent into the basement where the gargoyles turned somersaults like circus midgets.
-- Swan Peak by James Lee Burke.

Oh, my.  That packs quite a bit into an opening sentence.  And by the end of the first page, we've gone through child abuse and Vietnam flashbacks.  JLB is the best there is, but he can lay it on with a trowel sometimes. 

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Teaser Tuesday: Brother and Sister



"What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going looking for your mother's birth certificate."
-- Brother and Sister by Joanna Trollope.

This is an excellent story about a grown up brother and sister, both adopted, who decide to try to find their birth mothers.  Trollope considers how the search affects everyone in their lives -- the two of them, their spouses, their children, their adopted parents, and their birth mothers.  It is really good.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 



Monday, August 13, 2012

Mailbox Monday


Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

The team at 5 Minutes for Books is hosting in August.  Please stop by this eclectic group blog to find dozens of reviews and several giveaways.



Public Trust by J. M. Mitchell.  This is mystery with a National Park story-line -- looks fascinating! Thanks go to book publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek for my copy.



On Writing Well by Howard Zinsser.  I just listened to his recent memoir, Writing Places, and it made me want to read his famous book about writing non-fiction, On Writing Well. I got the 30th Anniversary edition from Amazon, but was excited to find a very nice copy of the original edition at Booktique, the Friends of the Library store in Lake Oswego.



Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott. This looks really interesting to me. And maybe very helpful.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Book Beginnings: Brother and Sister


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING



From where he sat, Steve could see right down the length of the studio.

-- Brother and Sister by Joanna Trollope.

This is really a very good beginning because it focuses the attention on Steve, the owner of a design studio. It is only after a while that the story develops and you realize that it is going to center on Steve's wife Nathalie and her brother -- both who were adopted.

Trollope is such a favorite of mine, even though she is a relatively new favorite. I am going to have to make an author page for her so I can keep track of my progress through her bibliography.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Score!


Every once in a while a diligent used book hound can hit it lucky. I did today when I happened to stop by Secondhand Prose, the Friends of the Library store in Oregon City.

I found a stash of Dick Francis books that someone had recently dropped off and they landed on the 25¢ shelf.  I grabbed all 24 of them for the whopping price of $6!

Eleven of them are duplicates for me -- I'll pass them on to my sister -- but thirteen are those I've been looking for, including two of his three Edgar winners, Whip Hand and Forfeit.  The list of those new to me are:

Dead Cert (1962)

Flying Finish (1966)

Forfeit (1968) (Edgar winner)

Slayride (1970)

Rat Race (1970)

Bonecrack (1971)

Risk (1977)

Trial Run (1978)

Whip Hand (1979) (Edgar winner featuring Sid Halley)

Reflex (1980)

Twice Shy (1981)

The Danger (1983)

Straight (1989)

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Teaser Tuesday: Winter Journal


The years of phallic obsession began. Like every other male who has wondered this earth, you were in thrall to the miraculous change that had occurred in your body.
-- Winter Journal by Paul Auster. I have had his New York Trilogy on my TBR shelf for several years.

I'm struggling.  For one thing, I had a heck of a time finding a teaser because I kept turning to passages with single sentences running over two pages long, mostly about sex.  

For another, the second-person narration is off putting to me.  So much "you did this" and "you did that" and I have to struggle against my initial reaction, which is always, no, I didn't. I didn't smoke or have a problem with premature ejaculation or live in Paris or hire prostitutes.  Maybe because his life is so very, very different from mind, I have a hard time getting inside his head as I would have to do to get over the second-person narrative. 

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 



Sunday, August 5, 2012

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

The team at 5 Minutes for Books is hosting in August.  Please stop by this eclectic group blog to find dozens of reviews and several giveaways.

I only got one book last week, but it's a real doozy!


Tough by Nature: Portraits of Cowgirls and Ranch Women of the American West by Lynda Lanker, published by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum and distributed by OSU Press.

Tough by Nature is a gorgeous coffee table book filled with portraits of 49 real women ranchers of the western United States.  Each portrait is accompanied by a  short biography of the woman portrayed. 

The book represents close to 20 years of effort by artist Lynda Lanker.  She worked with oil pastels, pencil and charcoal, egg tempura, plate and stone lithography, engraving, and drypoint to capture the personalities of her subjects -- the matriarchs of the West. 

The book features a foreword by Larry McMurtry, an introduction by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and an afterword by Maya Angelou.

Tough by Nature screams CHRISTMAS GIFT.  Even if I narrowed my list to spirited, independent women friends with a connection to the American West and a penchant for art, I could come up with over a dozen possible recipients. 

Anyone in Eugene, Oregon before September 9, 2012 can see the Tough by Nature exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Review: The Gate House




The Gate House is the sequel to Nelson DeMille's wildly popular mafia thriller/farce, The Gold Coast, picking up ten years after John Sutter's blue blood wife shot her mafia don lover.  Now John is back in the aristocratic Gold Coast section of Long Island, having spent three years sailing around the world and seven years as a London tax lawyer.  Susan Stanhope Sutter, his ex-wife, is also back from her exile in Hilton Head.  Unfortunately for both of them, the dead don's son has also moved back to the neighborhood, determined to avenge his father's death and take over his empire.

Those many thousands of readers who loved The Gold Coast will either enjoy this revisit to favorite territory or find it a desperate re-tread.  I fall into the first camp.  I was pleased to catch up with John and Susan, and DeMille had me laughing all the way through.  It is an excellent send-up of snooty East Coast high life, with clever dialog and plenty of one-liners.

The book poses a conundrum, however, fr those who didn't read the first one.  For one thing, the first one really is better.  There is no point reading the sequel instead of the inaugural.  But anyone who reads The Gold Coast for the first time can't immediately move on to The Gate House because DeMille exhaustively rehashes the original plot -- it would be torture.  The only way to enjoy the sequel would be to read the first one and then wait a couple of years. 

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book or The Gold Coast listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it. 

NOTES

This counts as one of my books for the TBR Challenges I am doing, as well as the Chunkster and Tea & Books Challenges.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Book Beginnings: Winter Journal


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING


You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.
-- Winter Journal by Paul Auster. I have had his New York Trilogy on my TBR shelf for several years.

This memoir keeps popping up on my radar, so I am going to try to read it while it is still au courant. It is not a traditional memoir.  Auster describes it as a "catalogue of sensory data . . . . a phenomenology of breathing." (Emphasis in original.)

Hmmmmm . . . We'll see. First I have to go look up phenomenology.

BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNERS

I hosted a giveaway for three advanced copies of Even If I Am by Chasity Glass,  my Book Beginning book last week. Thanks for all who participated!

The winners have a choice of a paper ARC or the enhanced e-book version.  Thanks go to the author and the extraordinary book publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek for making the giveaway possible.  

The winners (chosen by random.org) are:


Congratulations to the winners! You will hear from Mary Bisbee-Beek very soon.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Author Interview: Chad S. Hamill

 

Chad S. Hamill is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Northern Arizona University, where he serves as co-chair for the Commission for Native Americans. Of Spokane and non-Indian descent, he has also served as associate director of the Plateau Center of American Indian Studies at Washington State University. He has published and presented his work nationally and internationally, bridging the fields of Music and Native/Indigenous Studies in his research and scholarship.


Hamill's new book, Songs of Power and Prayer in the Columbia Plateau: The Jesuit, the Medicine Man, and the Indian Hymn Singer, was recently published by OSU Press.

CHAD RECENTLY TOOK TIME FROM HIS BUSY SCHEDULE TO ANSWER QUESTION FOR ROSE CITY READER (AND PROVIDE ONE HECK OF A BOOK LIST):

How did you come to write Songs of Power and Prayer in the Columbia Plateau?

When I was doing some genealogical research on my great uncle, Gibson Eli, I was given a cassette on which he was singing songs and answering some questions about his life as a medicine man. In answer to a question about his medicine dance (the oldest ceremony we have in the Columbia Plateau), he tells the interviewers, "Go ask Fr. Connolly, he can tell you anything [about the dance]." Needless to say, I was a bit stunned to hear that a Jesuit priest would know something about Gib's dance. This seemed to be at odds with the narrative I was familiar with -- of the divide between traditional Indians and missionaries -- between Christianity and indigenous ceremony. I looked Fr. Connolly up and gave him a call. After visiting with him for a short time, it became clear that their relationship went much deeper than I could have imagined, involving a reciprocal exchange that crossed religious and spiritual boundaries that had been long established. I knew right then that I had to tell this story.

Can you tell us a little bit about the encounter between a Jesuit priest, a medicine man, and a Native American hymn singer lead to cultural change?

The three of them went where no one had ventured before, bringing elements of traditional Native American ceremony and songs into the Catholic mass. The Jesuit became a student of his two "Indian grandfathers," learning about and participating in traditions his Jesuit predecessors sought to stifle. In the book I suggest that rather than being about religious conversion, theirs was an evenhanded conversation, one that hadn't taken place before. I think of them as spiritual rebels.

How did you research the cultural information and detail found in your book? Did you have primary sources? People to interview? Interpreters?

Fr. Connolly and I crisscrossed the Columbia Plateau interviewing people for the book. He has had longstanding relationships with many of those who contributed (often spanning 50 years or more). After the initial interview, I was free to follow up. Given the long trail of broken promises in Indian Country, trust is very important to Native people. Being introduced by Fr. Connolly served as a validation, enabling me to work from a foundation of trust he had established over many years. I also relied on members of my own family who are related to Gib Eli for important insights. Beyond real world interactions with people, I consulted a number of written sources by anthropologists, historians, etc.

What is “ethnomusicology”? As a professor of ethnomusicology, how do you spend your day?

Ethnomusicology is the study people making music in the context of culture. The field borrows heavily from anthropology, with fieldwork at the center of what we do. While a majority of ethnomusicologists travel far and wide to conduct fieldwork, we are free to study music of any place or time. Ethnomusicologists usually have one or two specializations (as you might imagine, I focus on Native American music of the Columbia Plateau region). In general we embrace an egalitarian view, accepting that all music has a role to play in society. A majority of ethnomusicologists teach in schools of music at the university level. We quite often teach a world music survey course and just about anything else that falls outside of the parameters of Western music. So in terms of what a typical day looks like for me, I prepare for my classes, teach, serve on university committees and with whatever time I have left over, I do research.

Your book inspires further reading. Can you recommend any other books related to Native Americans of the Columbia Plateau, the relationship between Indians and Catholics, indigenous songs, or other subjects you examine in your book?

Here is a cross section of books. Some are focused on Columbia Plateau history and culture while others deal with musical and spiritual phenomena I explore in the book.

Berliner, Paul. The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Carriker, Robert C. Father Peter John De Smet: Jesuit in the West. Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1995.

Friedson, Steven M. Dancing Prophets: Musical Experience in Tumbuka Healing. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Frey, Rodney. Landscape Traveled by Coyote and Crane: The World of the Schitsuʼumsh: Coeur d'Alene Indians. Seattle, Wash: University of Washington Press, 2001. Print.

Irwin, Lee. The Dream Seekers: Native American Visionary Traditions of the Great Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.

Jankowsky, Richard C. Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Josephy, Alvin M. The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965.

Mengarini, Gregory, and Gloria Ricci Lothrop. Recollections of the Flathead Mission: Containing Brief Observations, Both Ancient and Contemporary, Concerning This Particular Nation. Glendale, Calif: A.H. Clark Co, 1977.

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Olsen, Loran. Qilloowawya: Hitting the Rawhide: Serenade Songs from the Nez Perce Music Archive. Seattle: Northwest Interpretive Association, 2001.

Peterson, Jacqueline, and Laura L. Peers. Sacred Encounters: Father De Smet and the Indians of the Rocky Mountain West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.

Point, Nicolas, and Joseph P. Donnelly. Wilderness Kingdom, Indian Life in the Rocky Mountains: 1840-1847; The Journals & Paintings of Nicolas Point. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

Samuels, David W. Putting a Song on Top of It: Expression and Identity on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2004.

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What do you do to promote your book? Do you use social networking sites or other internet resources?

We are in the process of completing a website that will give readers access to the recorded Indian hymns in the book as well as many others: Songs of Power & Prayer.

Also, my book is part of the First People's Initiative, an indigenous studies series managed through a partnership between four university presses. You can find updates and info on my book as well as many others that may be of interest to your readers.

Do you have any events coming up to promote your book?

I hope to be giving a talk on the book at the Nez Perce Historical Park in Lapwai, ID this summer. I can let you know when I have a date.

What are you reading now?

Rez Life by David Treuer. Treuer weaves together his experience and that of friends and family growing up on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation with a concise history of Indian policy in the US. It is a compelling read that is at times disheartening but often inspiring.

What’s next? Are you working on your next book?

I'm mulling over a few different projects at the moment, both of which have real potential. I hope to decide on something soon . . . .

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