The Manly Hearted Woman

by Frederick Manfred

Bound in quarter cloth and paper covered boards.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Native American

185 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Manfred's novels are very much connected to his native region. His stories involve the American Midlands, and the prairies of the West. He named the area where the borders of Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska meet, "Siouxland."
(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Rae Hittinger · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book at the bank; left by a member of BookCrossing - a book sharing organization that allows people to leave their own books in public places and track its journey among readers as it travels. Could I ever do this with a book I cared about or liked? I'm not convinced that this book is worth reading. Perhaps there is no novel that can compare...

[Lauren]

There are certain books that represent a sense of there’s a feeling like my chest is on fire and my throat is closing. I don’t know if it’s apprehension or distain, but I couldn’t make it through more than a few pages. Each character of the tribe has a very literal name. Lightfoot is the runner. Heard from afar is the town crier. Corn silk is a woman with skin like corn silk, but it’s constantly divorced because her husband‘s accuser of having teeth in her vagina? I can I hate to say this, but I can always tell when it is a white American writing from not only someone else else’s perspective but a very intergenerational dramatic perspective with ongoing racism. Find a test everything about it. The bravado and assuming that they are equipped to tell other people story. The fact that they don’t have co-authors or people to consult on its authenticity. The fact that he literally profited from telling other people story without attributing any of that profit back to the people whose story it wasn’t his to tell. And that in the end he couldn’t tell.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not necessarily a book about the Sioux, it is not a book about lesbianism or homosexuality, it is not a book about war--and yet all these figure in the story as a whole. I am not sure I can say exactly what the book is about. It is called Manly-hearted Woman, but the protagonist is actually Flat Warclub. So it is a complex story about many facets of the human life, regardless that it is set specifically in Blue Mounds, Minnesota, among the people of a Sioux tribe. After reading the Forward by Mick McAllister in my copy of The Manly-hearted Woman, I find I am unequal to the task of writing my own review. I don't want to say it says it all, but the Forward is a good literary critique, and it helped my understanding of the characters and their purpose.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discovered this author when I was a member of a Western literature reading group. At that time I read Lord Grizzly. Individual group members read books from a list and reported their reactions to group members. I was impressed with the author's knowledge about Indian tribes and their cultures as well as his succinct and clear writing style. Needless to say when I found this book I grabbed it to return to a read in western literature.

The book is about a woman who feels she is more a man than a woman. As a woman she is a wife twice. After she kicks out her second husband she takes a wife and we view how accepting many tribal members are of her new lifestyle. Unlike most Indian women, she's an oustanding hunter and uses weapons as well as the men in her tribe. The author details her feelings and reactions as well as cultural mores of the tribe. The book is well written and gives the reader a feeling of how a woman with conflicting sexual orientations reacts to tribal laws and individuals. Well done and well worth the read.