Dear Freeman Owle,
I think what I find most appealing
in your stories is the throwaway details. Like the “many of you can remember,
maybe not” prelude to the description of old cars coming up the mountains with
Roosevelt looming in your introduction. Or the way you tell your version of the
Nikwasi Mound with historical grounding that somehow adds to its sense of
magic, not detracts.
You said that your parents were
afraid to teach you Cherokee, under the fear you would be persecuted. My father
underwent a similar thing—not Cherokee, and nowhere near as bad, but he too was
prevented from learning his native tongue by his parents, who were worried he
wouldn’t fit in, or would be persecuted in the 1940s and 50s America he grew up
in.
And Freeman, you also talk about
when the reservation was not “beyond the times of beauty.” I sometimes wonder
the same thing about my curd of suburbia I grew up in, thinking and dreaming
about when it was covered with trees and flora and fauna and things that
weren’t sixty-year-old WASPs. I’m worried we’re living beyond the times of
beauty now, and I desperately want that to change. Do you agree with that? You
talked about the rise of VCRs and televisions, and in the past fourteen years,
that’s only skyrocketed. Is storytelling still alive at all? I hope so.
And finally, I love the wickedly
sharp epitaph you left on your story, “The Magic Lake.” After telling all about
the lake that heals animals, and the beautiful befuddlement of the Cherokee boy
who’s witnessing all of it; after telling about how the Great Spirit sends a
message of love, and peace, and union with all of the world; after telling
about the hope of resurrection and freedom from sickness we all have, you end
with this sentence: “This was a belief that was ‘savage.’”
Thank you.
Jozef Lisowski
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