The Secret to Frybread and Life
One of the three central protagonists in the novel is the undisputed master of that delicacy enjoyed widely across Native American culture while still remaining on the shelf among the greater world beyond the reservations. Margie can make frybread like nobody’s business, but none of her competitors can quite seem to figure out what goes in that makes it come out so special. The narrator is not a competitor, however:
“Here is part of Margie’s secret: Unrequited love. The LaForce family land allotment in Sweetgrass. And not too much sugar when you add that little bit. But without Zho Washington’s grandmother, the three would have remained unconnected, as would have the ingredients that went into Margie’s mixing bowl and came out frybread, as would have the ingredients that went into her existence and came out Margie’s life.”
Pop Culture Referencing
Sometimes metaphor and similes arrive in the form of pop culture referencing. The problem with such allusions, of course, is that pop culture game comes and goes. Occasionally, once gone it will come back again, but this is only in the rarest of circumstances. And so the reference here to an actress who attained only a very mild form of fame at her most popular is likely become a metaphor that fails to do the job for most readers:
"`My great-great-grandmother was the daughter of a Cherokee chief,’ she announced, gesturing like Debra Paget and crossing her arms. As she paused her bracelets shivered and grew momentarily still.”
Voice of the Feds
A man from the federal government shows up the high school one day and Dale Ann is called out of class. He is employed as part of a program by the government to relocate promising Native Americans in school off the reservation and into a job training program. Yeah, it goes about as badly one either a conservative or liberal might expect. The man is intended to be a symbol of federal government fumbling in their short-term approaches to the long-term problem of dealing with unfortunate reminders of the theft upon which the country was founded. And so it is not surprising at all that this man—one Mr. Gunderson—sounds nothing at all like a sharp-voiced characters from the film Fargo despite his name, but instead ingratiates himself with the syrupy smooth delivery of a popular crooner who hit superstar status in the 1960’s.
“He had a pleasant voice, like Andy Williams’s.”
The Man
While the story is primarily focused on the three female protagonists specifically and women in general, there is one male in the story who rises to status of essential significance. His path will cut a swatch across the paths of all the other major characters and leave a lasting imprint, which helps to explain the poetic heights of metaphor whenever he starts showing up:
“His teasing was sunlight showering weightless flecks of yellow happiness in random, repeating patterns as seductive as the dance of the bottle spirits on her arms, her face, her hair.”
Peculiar Grace
Grace is one of the secondary female characters in the story. She is mostly interesting because she is a little peculiar, at least relative to the other women. Description of Grace is also peculiarly more robust with metaphorical references to behavior and personality than with create physical portraiture:
“She traveled a path paved with rumors as many and varied as little stones that she stepped on and over but never around, and without looking; in her wake they scattered, broke, rearranged themselves.”
