The Long Way Home

The Real People #5

by Robert J. Conley

Sold into slavery as an interpreter for the ruthless gold-seeking conquistador Don Hernando De Soto, elderly Deadwood Lighter vows to escape De Soto in order to warn the Cherokee nation of his imminent arrival. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Robert J. Conley was a Cherokee author and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, a federally recognized tribe of American Indians. In 2007, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

Reviews

[Robert Temple · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up The Long Way Home by Robert J. Conley in a thrift store in Jasper, Georgia. The first few pages captured me, so I bought it for fifty cents. The novel, set during the sixteenth century, is Book 5 in Conley’s The Real People seven-book series about the Cherokee Nation. I have not read any other book in the series and did not find that a hinderance to my enjoyment of The Long Way Home. Deadwood Lighter, a former priest in a traditional Cherokee religion, is the protagonist. After enduring many years as a slave among other Native American tribes and invading Spanish, he has escaped from the Spanish to warn his people. His good friend Dancing Rabbit calls a council of the entire Cherokee Nation, and Deadwood Lighter tells his story as a long monologue that lasts several days. Anyone with a passing familiarity of De Soto’s conquistador trek across the American Southeast will not be surprised at this horrific tale.
I believe, but cannot say with certainty, that Conley attempts to echo the oral traditions of Cherokee culture with Deadwood Lighter’s monologue. This attempt is not entirely successful. I found the first two chapters, told from a third person omniscient point of view, more engaging in their description of Deadwood Lighter’s last days on his trek than the protagonist’s long monologue that take up the remaining nineteen chapters covering his enslavement among the Spanish. I respect Conley’s attempt but believe reading an oral monologue is akin to reading a play. Both work best as oral performance art, not written texts. Perhaps, were I to read The Long Way Home aloud, Conley’s narrative would grip my senses with the intensity of his first two chapters.
Still, I enjoyed The Long Way Home, and should I find any of the other books in the series at my local thrift store, I will not hesitate to pony up another fifty cents. Four Stars.