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Almanac of the Dead

3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 · rating details · 1,275 ratings · 145 reviews

In its extraordinary range of character and culture, Almanac of the Dead is fiction on the grand scale. The acclaimed author of Ceremony has undertaken a weaving of ideas and lives, fate and history, passion and conquest in an attempt to re-create the moral history of the Americas, told from the point of view of the conquered, not the conquerors.

Paperback, 768 pages

Published November 1st 1992 by Penguin Books (first published 1991)

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Jan 07, 2008 Lori rated it 5 of 5 stars

I wrote my master's thesis on this book, thus I've lost track of how many times I've read it. This is not for the faint-of-heart. Silko is putting Western, Euro-centric culture on trial and the evidence she cites is pretty damning. She has said in interviews that the anger that seethes on every page of this novel is not her personal anger but the anger of the Earth. Anger over the cruelty, greed and destruction that dominate the rise of European culture over Native American culture and other nat...more I wrote my master's thesis on this book, thus I've lost track of how many times I've read it. This is not for the faint-of-heart. Silko is putting Western, Euro-centric culture on trial and the evidence she cites is pretty damning. She has said in interviews that the anger that seethes on every page of this novel is not her personal anger but the anger of the Earth. Anger over the cruelty, greed and destruction that dominate the rise of European culture over Native American culture and other native cultures around the world. She refers to this era as "The Reign of the Death-Eye Dog" and subliminally allies it with the current incarnation of the world as defined by the Mayan codices (codexes?). Known as the 5th World in Western terms, this era is slated to end in 2012, and Silko predicts that the next era will be defined by a return to a more "traditional" way of living. She dubs that "The Reign of the Fire-Eyed Macaw." This is necessary not for the survival of humanity, she contends, but for the survival of the earth. I've always thought that the earth was the only sympathetic character in the novel. The Earth, in its spiritual aspect, is always at the heart of Silko's fiction, whether it's embodied in a character, as it is in Ceremony, or omnipresent as it is in Almanac.

This is all encoded in the text, as befits a novel based on the writings of the Maya, but I think that it's pretty essential to understand that concept to stick it out to the end of this novel. The world Silko portrays is defined by the evil that men do, and very few, if any, of her characters have any redeeming qualities. She is, in a sense, holding up a mirror and daring us to confront the reflection. This is ferociously unapologetic fiction. It is an indictment. But it's important to note that Silko has not reduced her themes into a Western=bad, Native=good equation. In the world of the novel, everyone is either corrupted or corruptable.

I love books that are puzzlesque, and this stands (outside of Ulysses, which I could never get through) as the most complicated puzzle of a book that I've ever read. Not a beach-read, not a feel-good read, but if you can withstand the brutality, it is an amazing journey of a novel. (less)

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Jun 11, 2007 Hilary rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone who wants to have a life-changing experience. But maybe not children.

Shelves: my-teachers, future, community

This is the book that helped me realize that time doesn't have to be the way we think. Both the past and the future are our partners. We need them both, and we have them both with us all the time. This is the book that made me realize that although Bush totally rots, his time and his influence are temporary. What I got out of it was, "We have Life After Bush in our hands already -- we can make it better."

It doesn't say anything about Bush, actually, since it was published a while ago. Actually S...more

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Aug 01, 2008 Thea rated it 5 of 5 stars

As I've re-read this book twice, and regularly go back and read some of my favorite parts, I'm having trouble remembering what it was like reading it the first time around. It is a devastating portrait of the violence, greed, and moral corruption of colonization, making it often extremely difficult to read (there are several scenes of sexual violence that I skip when I re-read it). However, the violence is never, ever frivolous, rather, it feels like Silko demands that her readers bear witness t...more

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May 22, 2008 Christy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: native-american-lit-and-history, readinglist1, 20th-century-american-lit

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is a tough book. It's been ages since it took so much time and effort for me to finish a book. Silko creates dozens of characters in several locales and their stories are told only a little bit at a time, with little sense of how they relate to one another until the final section of the book. Even beyond the overwhelming size and scope of the book, Almanac of the Dead is a tough read because in it Silko presents big and frightening ideas. This is a book about the destruction of land and cul...more This is a tough book. It's been ages since it took so much time and effort for me to finish a book. Silko creates dozens of characters in several locales and their stories are told only a little bit at a time, with little sense of how they relate to one another until the final section of the book. Even beyond the overwhelming size and scope of the book, Almanac of the Dead is a tough read because in it Silko presents big and frightening ideas. This is a book about the destruction of land and culture by Destroyers (white people), not just in the United States, but in the Americas broadly, in Africa, and even in Europe. Most of the book is dedicated to showing the results of this destruction. People are greedy, dissolute, violent, disconnected from their spiritual roots and from the earth. As the novel progresses, these people either destroy themselves and each other or find a place in the movement to overthrow the Destroyers.

It is a long process of development, leading to a conclusion that looks toward the future with a mixture of hope and fear. It is unclear how much violence will be a part of this revolution, how long it will take to work, or what will happen to the characters we have been following. Ultimately, the characters don't matter. They are expendable. This is a book about the big picture--and most of the characters themselves realize this (at least among the "good guys"). Similarly, looking at the big picture, it is argued that it may take 50 bloody years to create this change or it may take hundreds of more peaceful years; but it will happen. The Destroyers will be removed from power. Their time will pass. The question, then, is what will happen in the meantime? Will Indians across the Americas rise up and fight, will they sacrifice themselves? Or will they try to wait it out? And at the rate that the Destroyers are working, will the Indians survive in the meantime? None of these questions are truly answered at the end of the novel, but possibilities are given. The twins are leading a large group of people north from Mexico, there is an army of Indians coming down from the north of the U.S., there is a homeless army growing around Tucson, and there are multiple leaders, human and spirit, driving Indians toward a conflict with the Destroyers. Clearly, then, Indians are rising up to fight in one way or another. Some groups look forward to nonviolent empowerment and others plan for violent uprising, however. Although Sterling notes with apprehension that "when the shooting started, women and children, the old and the sick, the innocent and the weak, would die first" (753), indicating the dangers of a violent uprising, in the end even he sees the bigger picture: "Burned and radioactive, with all humans dead, the earth would still be sacred. Man was too insignificant to desecrate her" (762). All that matters is the earth and its liberation and this realization changes Sterling: "Sterling didn't look like his old self anymore. He had lost weight and quit drinking beer. The postmaster reported Sterling had let go all his magazine subscriptions. Sterling didn't care about the rumors and gossip because Sterling knew why the giant snake had returned now; he knew what the snake's message was to the people. The snake was looking south, in the direction from which the twin brothers and the people would come" (763). These concluding lines provide some hope for the movement, for the people, for the earth.

But after 760 pages of development, to be left still looking forward to the action is extremely frustrating. Looking at this book as a political novel, this conclusion makes sense. The book gestures outside of itself to the real world, to a future that could be created by readers. But the beginning and middle of the novel do not feel like that of a political novel. There is too much going on; there are too many characters calling for the reader's attention. Basically, it's too complex to be an effective political novel in the traditional sense, but its conclusion demands such a reading. Almanac of the Dead also falls into the category of speculative fiction. It describes a world that is so much like ours that it barely registers as speculative fiction, but this is what gives it power. Silko has the freedom within this genre to embellish, to create a force that doesn't yet exist in the real world, but this force is created in a world that feels so real, so matter-of-fact even, that we begin to believe it really does exist. As such, the book is a warning, a guide, a prophecy that we must fulfill. (less)

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Oct 18, 2010 Dawn rated it 1 of 5 stars

I'd be one of those people watching Days of Our Lives, getting up to make tea, sitting down in unison, this shit-eating look on my face. Being swung up and let go. Then landing someplace shitty, like LA, where they spend their noontime making everything stretch out, writing scripts to things like "Criminal Minds" and "Desperate Housewives" and then watching everyone play it out. I'd be Silko's culturally-aware equivalent, riding on top of the days of our lives, smokin' hot, ready to be where the...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Judi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-1999

"Sixty million Native Americans died between 1500 and 1600. The defiance and resistance to things European continue unabated. The Indian Wars have never ended in the Americas. Native Americans acknowledge no borders; they seek nothing less than the return of all tribal lands."

I should have known better, with a title such as this. Really, what did I expect? I am finally on the last page of this book. It has taken me almost three months to read it. There were many times I thought I wouldn't go bac...more "Sixty million Native Americans died between 1500 and 1600. The defiance and resistance to things European continue unabated. The Indian Wars have never ended in the Americas. Native Americans acknowledge no borders; they seek nothing less than the return of all tribal lands."

I should have known better, with a title such as this. Really, what did I expect? I am finally on the last page of this book. It has taken me almost three months to read it. There were many times I thought I wouldn't go back to it. Psychologically it is the hardest book I have ever read. The words flow easily but the content is brutal and the worst images are repeated over and over. Like a war cry, it reverberates. Taken as whole, I have to say that this is one of most significant pieces of literature that I have read.
How do I summarize this 763 page novel? First we have Seese, a drug addict living with several homosexual men, one of which is the father of her baby. Her baby is stolen and she goes off to find him and tracks down a psychic woman she sees on TV. Lecha has been finding people for years and has made a good living from it, but she's decided to take a break as she realizes that she can only find the dead, never the living. She goes off to Tucsan, where Seese finds her, to live with her twin sister, Zeta. Lecha has decided that it is time to translate the Almanac that has been passed down for thousands of years. Zeta has already translated her section which, she alone knows, is the key to everything. She's stayed on their father's land and has good business running drugs and stocking arms. She raised Lecha's son, Ferro (another homosexual) who, with Paulie, helps with the business. Besides Seese, the other new employee is Sterling. He is a Laguna Indian whose tribe sent him away for a transgression he didn't think he really had control over. (If any character grows in this whole book, it's Sterling.)

Then there is Calabazas and his crew who have a healthy business importing pumpkins (filled with marijuana) into Tucson. He has the crazy Mosca and the handicapped Root working for him. We meet the Mafia through Max Blue (who lives on a golf course) and his sons and nephew. And there's crooked politicians, sadistic police, gun dealers and gun smugglers. Over the border, we have the Cuban Bartolomeo who is trying to educate the Indian masses on communism. His best student Angelita learns the lessons of Marx and Engle, but knows that Communism does not hold the secrets for the Indians. The communists rewrite history and do not want the Indians to remember their own uprisings, their own resistance.

We meet Menardo who earns tremendous wealth by running an insurance company that protects the rich against natural disasters and uprisings. Menardo, obsessed with security, becomes paranoid for his own life. And then there is blond Algeria, a trained architect, Menardo's second wife and lover to both Bartolomeo and Sonny Blue.

Meanwhile the Reign of the Fire-Eye Macaw has begun. The twin brothers are leading the people north. It is time to take back the land from the white people.

Silko's style in this novel is to repeat phrases, thoughts, and actions over and over, wrapping one story into the next. The stories each have their own pain, their own lessons. Some are very, very graphic. There are references of conspiracy that even the most paranoid may not even have dreamed up yet. The stories are so unique they are unforgettable. Sometimes we know the end of a story, sometimes we can only guess. She paints a picture of the White Man as a sadistic, self centered, self destructive force who has raped, pillaged and killed her people. But worse than that, the White Man has violated Mother Earth. To hurt the Earth is to kill himself. Because long after man is wiped from the face of the earth, the earth will be there and will repair itself no matter how long it takes. (1999)

"When Europeans arrived, the Maya, Azteca, Inca cultures had already built great cities and vast networks of roads. Ancient prophecies foretold the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. The ancient prophecies also foretell the disappearance of all things European."
(less)

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Jul 04, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction

One of the Great American Novels of the Latter Half of the 20th Century

By any standard of measurement, Leslie Marmon Silko is a great American writer, and her novels, beginning with "Ceremony", are notable additions to American literature. "Almanac of the Dead" may be her literary masterpiece, a magnificent "stream-of-consciousness" novel that looks back on more than five hundred years of sordid history between Western European invaders (and their descendants) and the original Native American in...more

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Mar 25, 2011 Natanya Sturley rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had to flip to the cover and make sure there was only one author (even though I adore her and have heard speak on several occasions) considering the amount of information, detail, description, connection and activity in this one book. It covers more than 30 characters and I felt I got to know each of them intimately. At times, too intimately. There's mucho sex, dirty sex, some bestiality, serial killing, snuff films and lesser (some much much lesser) crimes, incivilities and cruelties performe...more

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Oct 22, 2010 Chrisf rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I put Amazing as my rating, but that is more because Silko is so able to make the story real. I didn't like the story because it is harsh, angry, tragic, and also true.
Her earlier books, "Ceremony" and "Storyteller" are atypical novels of story/myth/ and poetry. I learned the power of this combination from these books. Magic is Alive... there are bad witches, but also good medicine. All in all there was an element of hope and a chance of personal power and the ability to make changes, in your o...more

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Aug 27, 2009 Kay rated it 5 of 5 stars

Alright. First of all, I want to admit that I see flaws in this novel. There were times when I was bored to tears. But, it is so damn dense, and if I were to count the number of times it just completely blew my mind, I'd have to give it five stars' worth of goodness and maybe some external negative star for being kind of convoluted and boring (but only in bursts). In short, the good FAR outweighs the bad.

Second, many of the reviews I've read for Almanac attack the book because there are a number...more Alright. First of all, I want to admit that I see flaws in this novel. There were times when I was bored to tears. But, it is so damn dense, and if I were to count the number of times it just completely blew my mind, I'd have to give it five stars' worth of goodness and maybe some external negative star for being kind of convoluted and boring (but only in bursts). In short, the good FAR outweighs the bad.

Second, many of the reviews I've read for Almanac attack the book because there are a number of homosexual villains, and the readers see Silko as a homophobe. I do not agree with this criticism, nor do I fully understand it due to the fact that PRETTY MUCH EVERY CHARACTER IS A VILLAIN!!! Even the "heroes" are brutal, drug-addicted, self-absorbed criminals! Unfortunately, many of the truly perverted characters also display some homosexual tendencies, but they are not the only ones. Claiming that all gay characters in this book are depicted as evil is the same as saying that all drug-addicted characters are depicted as evil. It's just not true. Eric is a sympathetic character. He is a victim, and he is not perverted in any way. He is a normal guy who gets sucked into some fucked up shit.

Third, the obsessions and stories surrounding Serlo, Lecha, Trigg, the Eskimo woman, Roy and Clinton, and Menardo are engrossing. I love how this book depicts obsession. Half these characters are devoured by their delusions of grandeur or the ability to escape death. Lecha, Rose (?), and the vets (Roy and Clinton) represent a different kind of obsession. They belong to their causes or their histories. They know they cannot escape, and that allows them to fully commit to their causes. It interesting that the two different categories of obsession (selfish and selfless) come from opposite causes. Those who destroy themselves and others do so because they are convinced of their unlimited power. Those who dedicate themselves (and essentially commit their lives to whatever cause) do so because they can see how power is not derived from the individual, but the masses.

This really is a good book. It's hard to get through. The voice gets really monotonous and bothersome at times. The stories are difficult to keep straight, but of all the books I've read this year, this one has affected my thinking the most. Why do we all suffer on behalf of the few who already have privileges and do nothing about it? Why do we think we have the answer in OUR religion and try to force it on others? Why is it so goddamned difficult to just listen to what someone else has to say?(less)

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Jun 12, 2009 Cole rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead for my "Big Books" class, and quickly realized that Silko's work definitely fit the description of a big book: it's a sprawling, expansive epic that spans various continents and chronologies. Beyond big, however, any label you try to apply becomes problematic: it is an epic with no hero, a soap opera with deadly consequences, an exhaustive study too broad to truly be exhausted. Although the tribes that populate these pages "acknowledge no borders,...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Kaila rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is deep and heavy as like it looks. It is funny, serious, and a whole lot of wow. The book is long and can be a bit boring at times because of it. There are a lot of characters in this novel and you do have to be patient with the constant shift of perspectives.However, I promise they all do connect, someway and somehow. It is not a liner plot line so one might have to adjust to that. There is a great deal of food for thought ...perhaps why some do not like the ending. Silko gives a bu...more

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Oct 12, 2009 Catherine rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was determined to finish this and I did. I was so hungry for the narrative: drug dealing and real estate development in Tucson, an army of the homeless, military fortifications on the border, a tv psychic, persistent rumors of an indigenous uprising coming from the south. Some of these themes overlap with 2666, and it's also similar to 2666 for being a Big Book. But I just couldn't get past the writing. First of all, most of the book is written in the past perfect, for no grammatical reason I...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Sidewalk_Sotol rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history buffs and those who enjoy seeing things fall apart.

This is an extremely long, but not dense, set of intertwining stories involving a very large number of characters who live mostly in Mexico or in the US state of Arizona, near Tucson. A work of contemporary historical fiction encompassing over 300 years of time between the Apache excursions against US and Mexican governments and the future time. The title alludes to a book put together by an unnamed tribe facing their final days, on the verge of being hunted and starved to death, a book not onl...more

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Aug 20, 2008 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Reading this book through to the end requires some fortitude and determination. Kind of like Moby Dick. But this novel is, well, prophetic. Occasionally, when I come across some item in the news (like the buying and selling of human organs), I say to myself, Oh, that was predicted in Almanac.

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Dec 28, 2011 Leslie added it

It was emotionally painful to read this book. So little redemption, and so varied an assortment of reasons to despair about human nature and the direction of the world, made it feel like a task to keep turning the pages. I'm glad I finished it, and I think it says things that are important to've been said, but I couldn't wait for it to be done. Drug trade, organ trade, sex trade, the rich discounting the poor, the poor despising the rich, betrayal personal and professional, a widespread movement...more

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May 16, 2009 Mary rated it 1 of 5 stars

Someone said a good book tells about a good character, and a bad book tells more about the character of its author. I believe this book is the latter, and I don't believe I would care to cross paths with Leslie Marmon Silko. Among the many fold things I disliked about this book (homophobia, long academic pretension, shock tactics, faux-spiritualism, and completely soulless characters), I found the anger in it to be the most disturbing. It was anger DISGUISED as prophesy and renewal, but in the e...more

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Mar 05, 2009 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is not my favorite book, but it's stayed with me all these years and I'm reminded of it often. I've finally accepted that the parts that piss me off (the pedantic academic sections, the enormous homophobic streak) are inseparable from the fullness of Silko's apocalyptic vision. What begins as a more or less straightforward kidnapping-and-drug-running story mushrooms into an ultraviolent indictment of... well, much of the last 500 years.

I'm always going to associate Almanac of the Dead and B ...more

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Jul 21, 2007 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

BUT, don't read this if you are tender-hearted or images of violence are likely to seep beneath your skin. i couldn't put this down. then it stayed with me in a haunting and awful way for years.

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Jul 04, 2007 Melody rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: radicals and feminists

Shelves: general-fiction

A fierce and disturbing look at the global crisis, those destroying the world and those being destroyed. Well written and provokitive, this dark look at the future of our planet will haunt you.

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Nov 30, 2009 Bec rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 19, 2013 Sara rated it 1 of 5 stars

This felt like one of the longest reading experiences of my life: Seven hundred and sixty-three pages, which I mostly hated from beginning to end. I think Silko is trying to say something about the destruction to the earth that comes with colonialism, but one has to wade through a whole bunch of terrible people in order to get to that point. The book is complete with fairly detailed descriptions of snuff porn, including the dismemberment of babies; eugenicists and white supremacists; bestiality;...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Reiden rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: native-american, fiction

The US financial system is in collapse, many areas of the country are fending for themselves. States like Arizona have lost all major industries and now depend on drug dealing, prostitution and worse. The wealthy are trickling out of the country, some circles are even planning space stations that would allow them to escape the ever increasingly destroyed planet.

Humans in general are the true antagonists of this long story - some more than others. The worst humans are the ones who have lost their...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction, culture

My Review: It took me quite some time to make my way through this incredible behemoth! The endless twists and turns; the unconventional stories and histories; the truths and the subtle fictions— Leslie Marmon Silko has woven an intricate and highly political masterpiece effectively predicting the imminent rise of the Indigenous. For five hundred years, European “destroyers” have committed heinous acts of genocide; they have desecrated all that is sacred of Nature and Humanity; they have created...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Joey Beatty rated it 3 of 5 stars

Almanac of the Dead took me eleven months or so to complete. I picked it up in spurts. Which i thought was fine; the intricacies and tangents allow for that type of reading, which I rarely employ. I will try and state my opinion of it simply. As information, as history, as ideology, and as a tool for pinpointing political and social accountability, this book was beautiful, accurate, extremely justified, and I celebrate every second of it. It is an extremely valuable, and, as I'm sure is the case...more

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Oct 31, 2008 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

When this book came out, I had many friends who recoiled reading it. It should have been the book chosen for the celebration of Columbus in 1992. Instead Crown of Columbus by Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich was chosen--a soap opera of a novel that was dismal. If you can't handle brutal reality, this book is not for you. While this came out to lukewarm audiences in the U.S., Central and South America embraced it. Why? It speaks exactly to the experience of the Americas, historically and present...more

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May 06, 2008 Marissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is as dazzling as it is dense.It's ripe with history, mythology, interesting characters and steamy sex.

Readers who enjoy action movies will like this. Curiously, so will those interested in the "alternate history" literature that's so popular now. Also, it's very rich in cultural mythology, which I'm finding very interesting

Although I am thus far enjoying it, it's not one I'd like to nominate for Oprah's audience...It's themes are intensely ambitious. Silko is not only refusing to pre...more

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May 26, 2010 Petter Nordal rated it 4 of 5 stars

I actually hated this book when i read it. A bunch of messed up, drug addicted, misanthropic, horrible people make the revolution? I thought it was homophobic and awful.

It was after reading Vanity Fair that it occurred to me that Almanac is also a "novel without a hero." The whole point, it now seems to me, is that we can all see how horribly messed up the world is, and it's not saints who are going to fix it; it's got to be fixed by people who are hurt, and these people have problems.

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Dec 10, 2008 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars

This one is hard to recommend as it's overly long and literally all over the place, but some of it was awesome. If you want to read something with a hundred really screwed up characters and vaguely Grant Morrisonion layering of outlaw/revolutionary activities and Native American prophecies playing out in a pre-apocalyptic alternate history version of our world, then it's worth checking out. Plus there's a subplot involving a Mexican judge who has sex with basset hounds.

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Dec 07, 2012 Stuart rated it 4 of 5 stars

If Silko's reach exceeds her grasp, it's to be forgiven - she's trying to squeeze the entire history (and future) of European colonialism in the Americas into a single story. And even at 763 pages, there's no way that's ever going to work. Despite that, the many characters and intertwined stories make this epic novel compelling, haunting, tragic, occasionally shocking, and damned hard to put down. And the city of Tucson has never been this well portrayed anywhere. The elements of magical realism...more

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About Leslie Marmon Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon on March 5, 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 1981.

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Quotes from Almanac of the Dead

“Because if you weren't born white, you were forced to see differences; or if you weren't born what they called normal, or if you got injured, then you were left to explore the world of the different.” — 8 people liked it

“The truth of course was otherwise, but Lecha had never felt she owed anyone the truth, unless it was truth about their own lives, and then they had to pay her to tell them.” — 6 people liked it

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