Though it was first published 20 years ago, Debra Magpie Earling's Perma Red remains relevant. This rereleased edition of Earling's coming-of-age novel, set on Montana's Flathead Indian Reservation, revisits the hardships and passions of Indigenous communities through the story of Louise White Elk.
In Perma, Mont., during the 1940s, tradition, governmental rules and modern ways clash. Smart, fierce Louise is conflicted: she longs to feel accepted yet is determined to escape to a better life. Impoverished Grandma Magpie, who follows the old ways, struggles to raise Louise and her sister, while Louise's teachers, Ursuline nuns brandishing "the metal-edged threat of rulers," aim to liberate her "from the darkness of superstition." Chapters alternate between two perspectives: Louise and tribal officer Charlie Kicking Woman, obsessed with saving Louise, especially from Baptiste Yellow Knife. The notorious Baptiste "knows... things," Grandma Magpie warns Louise, "because the spirits tell him. He is the last of our old ones, and he is dangerous." His mother, Dirty Swallow, commands rattlesnakes, who trail behind her "like a wedding train."
As Louise matures, she "felt more comfortable in the bar in Dixon than she felt in the classroom" and indulges the attentions of other men, but Baptiste persists. "And though Baptiste could be mean, Baptiste had insisted on loving her with no love in return," Louise admits. Cruelty, violence and injustice--in addition to the despair of poverty and a harsh climate--buffet Louise, who seems fated for a tragic end. Earling (The Lost Journals of Sacajewea), a member of the Bitterroot Salish, balances tension with poetic, dreamlike descriptions, suggesting that what seems hopeful could, in fact, become reality. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.