Grave concerns, trickster turns

by Christopher A. LaLonde

"In this first book-length examination of Owen's writings, Chris LaLonde focuses on five critically acclaimed novels: The Sharpest Sight, Bone Game, Wolfsong, Nightland, and Dark River. According to LaLonde, Owens works his stories like a trickster, turning ideas back against themselves and playing with contradictory possibilities. The conflicting Native and Western perspectives of time, history, humor, and authority dramatize how such clashes can threaten to undermine any sense of home and identity for Indians. In the process, Owens underscores the sham of the ethnic identities foisted upon American Indians - the Noble Savage, the Silent Indian, the Vanishing Native, and the Indian as Tragic Victim."--BOOK JACKET.