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A review by leahtylerthewriter
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
5.0
"Let love be your vengeance, your honor restored because you did not surrender to their violence."
I had no idea how exceptional this book was going to be, that it would land in my top five of the year. There's a simplicity to the storytelling that brought me to the edge, everything being conveyed while not being stated at all. Couple that with a protagonist who is suffering from a suffocating sense of alienation -- from herself, from her family, from her culture -- and I felt as enraptured as I did estranged.
Rosalie Iron Wing has spent her life in a suspended state of survival, gliding along the earth without setting down roots, after her father died and she was removed from her Dakhóta reservation and placed in foster care. Her journey through marriage and motherhood is heavily impacted by the emergence of GMO farming. The way she reconnects with her ancestors via the seeds women have passed down through the generations brought a powerful interconnectedness to this story.
There are brief dips into the points of view of some of these women starting in the mid 1800s, as they are removed from their land and their children are placed in boarding schools. These chapters were short and infrequent and supremely impactful. I could not have possibly taken any more but read each one at least twice.
This book showed me something about myself; I respond to characters when I can't tell if I am rooting for them to fight harder for their own autonomy or survival. Women throughout history have seldom been able to pursue both simultaneously, for achieving one frequently comes at the detriment of the other.
Basically this is the kind of book I need 925 words and a column in a newspaper to properly review. The highest praise I can give an author is this: she made me feel emotion without telling me about it, and that took me on a rewarding and exceptional journey.
"Let me tell you what I know of forgiveness. It came with sharp teeth and the bluest eye. With a breath that stank of whiskey and a fist that knocked me to the ground. The bluest eye follows me now, sits in your classroom learning to read. In a few days we leave for my home and she will ride in the back of the wagon, this bluest eye, this reminder, this half-breed child."
I had no idea how exceptional this book was going to be, that it would land in my top five of the year. There's a simplicity to the storytelling that brought me to the edge, everything being conveyed while not being stated at all. Couple that with a protagonist who is suffering from a suffocating sense of alienation -- from herself, from her family, from her culture -- and I felt as enraptured as I did estranged.
Rosalie Iron Wing has spent her life in a suspended state of survival, gliding along the earth without setting down roots, after her father died and she was removed from her Dakhóta reservation and placed in foster care. Her journey through marriage and motherhood is heavily impacted by the emergence of GMO farming. The way she reconnects with her ancestors via the seeds women have passed down through the generations brought a powerful interconnectedness to this story.
There are brief dips into the points of view of some of these women starting in the mid 1800s, as they are removed from their land and their children are placed in boarding schools. These chapters were short and infrequent and supremely impactful. I could not have possibly taken any more but read each one at least twice.
This book showed me something about myself; I respond to characters when I can't tell if I am rooting for them to fight harder for their own autonomy or survival. Women throughout history have seldom been able to pursue both simultaneously, for achieving one frequently comes at the detriment of the other.
Basically this is the kind of book I need 925 words and a column in a newspaper to properly review. The highest praise I can give an author is this: she made me feel emotion without telling me about it, and that took me on a rewarding and exceptional journey.
"Let me tell you what I know of forgiveness. It came with sharp teeth and the bluest eye. With a breath that stank of whiskey and a fist that knocked me to the ground. The bluest eye follows me now, sits in your classroom learning to read. In a few days we leave for my home and she will ride in the back of the wagon, this bluest eye, this reminder, this half-breed child."