This is such a thoughtful review, Helen, that I wanted to respond and thank you.
I was concerned about the "drawn out" aspect of the book, as well, and may have fallen too much in love with explication at the expense of pacing. In the end I trusted the fact that it was a book about character rather than plot and fell back on my faith in the European rather than the American novel. But, having said that, you put your finger on my own concern as an author. You have good literary instincts.
Think of it as a "director's cut." An editor with a hatchet could have made a perfectly good but very different book of about 350 pages. But I went the route I did.
As to the ending, I have to fall back on my long experience in the Native world and, more significantly, Native reality. To them and to those of us who have shared their world in any fashion, our western reality is, as Lone Dog says, "a small room". Things happen; things are not as they seem; and our "square cornered reality" soon seems paltry and limited. So, yes, the ending did stretch credulity. But most of their world does. And therein lies its power and profundity and why I continue to do what I do to bring their values and understanding to our culture that dearly needs a reset.
Thanks again. You are the kind of reader I truly value.
I was concerned about the "drawn out" aspect of the book, as well, and may have fallen too much in love with explication at the expense of pacing. In the end I trusted the fact that it was a book about character rather than plot and fell back on my faith in the European rather than the American novel. But, having said that, you put your finger on my own concern as an author. You have good literary instincts.
Think of it as a "director's cut." An editor with a hatchet could have made a perfectly good but very different book of about 350 pages. But I went the route I did.
As to the ending, I have to fall back on my long experience in the Native world and, more significantly, Native reality. To them and to those of us who have shared their world in any fashion, our western reality is, as Lone Dog says, "a small room". Things happen; things are not as they seem; and our "square cornered reality" soon seems paltry and limited. So, yes, the ending did stretch credulity. But most of their world does. And therein lies its power and profundity and why I continue to do what I do to bring their values and understanding to our culture that dearly needs a reset.
Thanks again. You are the kind of reader I truly value.