University of Nebraska Books

Hannah is a wise book written by a man with a huge heart. I love how the cabin-building provides a framework, always something to fall back on when loss otherwise wants to swamp me. I love the honest voice describing people who love each other enough to risk anger and fighting. I love how there are always elk or eagles, mud, a river, a runoff--how grounded the book is in the created world. I hunger for that & Jonathan Johnson feeds it to me. I myself am a better person with more to give when I finish this book.

Jonathan Johnson, Hannah and the Mountain

reviewed by Jacob Powers

It is difficult to find a text that gives balance between nature and family. Granted, each genre holds its own, but to find a book that discusses both the love of the wilderness and the love of family is rare. Fortunately Jonathan Johnson, with his memoir Hannah and the Mountain, has successfully done just that.
Johnson's narrative at first focuses on his goal to renovate a cabin owned by his extended family for over forty years for him and his wife, Amy, in the Idaho wilderness: "[We] came to the mountains because our adult lives were rushing toward us and we wanted to go out and meet those lives in a place that would keep us young and free and filled with passion. After years of school we were ready to settle into the long story of home." This feeling of home quickly takes a step forward when Jonathan and Amy discover that she is pregnant with their first child. Now, with the combination of extensive renovations and the limited amounts of resources to do so, the intent to form a home suitable to raise his future child in quickly takes off. Yet Johnson does it all in hope-hope that his firstborn will experience the beauty and awe of the wilderness that he and his wife adore.
Tragedy, however, ensues as the memoir (which reads a lot like a novel) quickly disintegrates from its optimistic dreams into the harsh realities of a complicated pregnancy. The baby is carried too low, putting pressure on and stretching the lower uterus, threatening a premature birth: "Amy'd been having pains low in her abdomen all along...the hope was that the pains were the result of these problems, not the contractions that could be causing the problems." Yet all hope is not lost as Johnson guides the reader through his and his wife's pains and grief towards a strong anticipation that they will be able to tame their dreams again: "We've got our little cabin on land I've come to think of as an extension of my own body...that will be more than enough for Amy and me to build a life on. I will not create sorrows in a life where sorrows find me on their own."
While most of the themes and settings in the book take place Idaho, many are reflective of Michigan's landscape as well. Johnson writes of Marquette where both he and Amy grew up several times throughout. There are also moments where he and his wife consider where they would rather have the baby-in their own formed home in the Idaho wilderness, or back in Marquette where their parents and past lives are. But what stands out the most is Johnson's connection with a past friend and writer, Mac, who experiences the death of his sixteen year old son when he died in an accident on the icy roads just outside of Marquette. It is in this moment of the book where Johnson connects his own experiences of a possible future father with the tragic loss that Mac experiences: "Odds are that being a father will forever be like walking on the thick crust on top of four feet of snow in the cold, February sunlight." As the memoir progresses, it becomes apparent that the love and fear of family cannot simply be contained within the borders of our own state or within Johnson's past life. Michigan may be where Johnson grew up, but Idaho is where his home and life is now.
Although the story is one that has been heard before, it is Johnson's heavy experience in the poetic realm and ability to capture emotions of joy and distress that makes Hannah and the Mountain stand out amongst others. With an interwoven reflection between the lyrical love of the wilderness with the preferable avoidance of the busy city life, Johnson paints a landscape that is powerful and unforgettable. Yet what lies in the foreground of Johnson's affection of the wilderness is that irreplaceable love and desire he has for family itself-"If any of us are ever saved, whatever that might mean, we aren't saved by the stories we create for ourselves to inhabit; we are saved by our loves." For Johnson, it is the family that makes the life; the rest is replaceable.



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Jacob Powers is a senior at Grand Valley State University, graduating in the winter of 2006 with a degree in Creative Writing and a minor in English. After graduating, he plans to take a year off and then apply to graduate programs.

Jonathan Johnston writes with the evocative prose of a poet. He tells the story of his path toward fatherhood and toward the fulfillment of his childhood dream of building his family's cabin home in the mountains of Idaho. He does so with passion and care. The reader sees clearly the autumn twilight as it fills the fields and sees the full moonlight come spilling through the windows of the cabin. On these beautifully written pages the reader learns of the profound love Johathan and his wife Amy share. It is a book I shall love giving so others might come to know this incredible author.

I am a former student of Jonathan's...in fact, I am one of the students who sat on the lawns of the Western PA College during his Nature in Lit class that he mentions in the book. That was six years ago and I have been a fan of his work ever since.

This memoir is beautifuly crafted as only a poet-turned-prose writer could do. He weaves the story of building his home, following his dreams, and starting a family in a touching and compelling fashion. The reader relates to the joy and hope of the young couple and feel their pain in times of trouble. This is not a memoir that serves to glorify the life of the author, but rather, it serves as a connection to each of us who are in pursuit of identity (be it individual or family or whatever else)and who are all on the journey through life.

This is a beautiful work. I have never cried so hard over the pages of a book before. Johnson has been couragous and honest in his prose which makes it such an inspiring read.

I was given this book by a patient. The people in the stories are the same as today. The truths he tells and the antedotes are priceless. A must read for medical students and young professionals.

When I first picked up this book, I was interested in it because it was so old. As I read it, especially the first few chapters about his adventures in elementary school (I teach fourth grade) I was pleased. I feel better about the antics my students have gotten into. The rest of the book is an entertaining, yet infomative first hand account of the growth of the medical profession. We have come a long way. I am looking forward to seeing where we go.

I just finished this book last night. I have an interest in medical history, particularly american. The author gives a detailed insight into early american medicine. He was truely a wonderful man and physician. I am a physician and am surprised how many problems he experienced that are still currently problems in medicine. This book is a must read for anyone interested in early american medicine.

This book is excellent for understanding life in the mid to late 1800's, for understanding the speed with which the "practice of medicine" has grown, and growing in honesty with oneself. The humor and joy is the best! And I empathized with the pain and difficulty.

"The Indian War of 1864" is a reissue of a memoir originally published in the early 1900s. It recounts the day-by-day adventures of Eugene Ware, a young officer in an Iowa cavalry unit serving in far western Nebraska toward the end of the Civil War. The author, who later in his life was a published poet and friend of Mark Twain's, writes beautifully of life in the ranks on the far edges of civilization. He not only recounts the nitty-gritty of service in a volunteer cavalry unit, he wisely and graphically documents the clash of settlers and Indians. As a serving Army officer, I most enjoyed the many hard lessons Ware learned as a junior officer trying to maintain order and discipline among his soldiers. The volunteer soldiers of his unit were a rough and unruly bunch who had the signal virtues of being fearless fighters who never shirked their duties. All other soldierly qualities--such as the ability to stay sober--were in doubt and posed extreme leadership challenges for Lieutenant Ware. I have often shared anecdotes from the book with my peers and subordinates as examples of both how to earn the respect of American soldiers and how to live up to the demands of duty as an officer under extreme stress in remote locations. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in the settling of the West, the US Army of the time, and the sad downfall of the American Indian.

I picked this book up by mistake. What a wonderful mistake.

This is a first hand account of the Indian War of 1864. In terms of its chronological time slot, these remembrances of Captain Eugene F. Ware, Seventh Iowa Cavalry, fit smack in the middle of the flood tide of Western migration from all parts of the east. Captain Ware's responsibilities were to keep the overland migration routes free from Indian attack while simultaneously protecting the Indians from white depredations. The story depicted is one of continual conflict resolution, long, weary hours of patrol, inadequate manpower and intense exposure to drought, flood, heat and cold. It is a story of fifteen mile wagon trains, vast buffalo herds and space, truly wide open space. It is a story of the OLD west, that which existed before fences and cattle ranches, before complex Indian reservation systems and most of all, a time when Native American tribes were still a force to be reckoned with. It is extremely well written.

That portion of the trail which Eugene Ware patrolled is today Interstate 80 as it passes through western Nebraska.

Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska around the Platte river --1864. Cheyenne, Sioux, Pawnee, Kiowa, and others. Wagon trains from horizon to horizon. Confederate deserters. How to build a fort. Drunken troopers. A prairie fire moving at the speed of a train. A fort surrounded by thousands of Indains. Watching the beaver play. Surrounded by wolves. Brave soldiers. An incompetent officer. The secret society. A phonetic roster of Indian scouts. Hunting buffalo. The price of bacon, flour, rice, coffee, and other supplies. The different landscapes described. Tracking and running from Indians. An "accidental suicide." Premonitions. Real people as they really lived. A thousand vignettes as seen by Captain Eugene Ware of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry.

This is the memoir of a young cavalry officer serving on the Plains at the end of the Civil War. It is very interesting in the way it depicts day to day life, and merges the two conflicts. I was not aware, for example, that the Union was so concerned about Confederate attempts to ally with Indian tribes.

Having said this, I caution, that it's not exactly like reading about Custer. The most exciting encounter with the Indians involves Ware and his troop trying to make a mad dash for the fort before the Indians have time to persue, and the major accomplishment is replacing the telegraph wires that the Cheyennes destroyed. Thus I would not recommend this for an individual new to the topic of the Indian Wars, but if you're at the point where you want to delve deeper, and get more insight into the times, this is a very valuable work.

Umpire Jocko Conlan (1899-1989) describes his long career in baseball in this entertaining biography co-written with Robert Creamer. Growing up on Chicago's South Side Conlan dreamed of playing for the White Sox, and briefly did so (1934-35) after years in the minors. One day as the Sox were about to play the Browns in St. Louis an umpire was out, so Conlan went in to officiate (as occasionally happened then) and the rest is history. Conlan officiated in the minors from 1936-1940, then spent a quarter century as an umpire in the majors. Conlan describes many facets of umpiring, including getting into position, not anticipating the call, using your head, and maintaining your integrity and respect. We also learn about the spitball, bean balls, arguments, travel, plus the non-stellar pay and benefits. This valuable book should be read by anybody with an interest in umpiring at any level, be it the pro's, high school, or little league. There's also much baseball history in these pages, including anecdotes about people like Leo Durocher, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, etc.

This dated book remains a valuable read, given Conlan's upbeat, intelligent style and Creamer's easy-reading prose.

Anyone who loves baseball will enjoy the stories Jocko relates in this book. A true baseball fan will appreciate the directness and honesty with which he went about his work--and wish that more of that were evident in the game today!

I've read the book over and over. Baseball means visiting the past in what we thought as kids as simpler times with heroes. Baseball players were my heroes. Jocko Conlan was a man behind the mask in control of the great game. I've related myself with a person's will without the GOD given gift to be a player but with the determination to find a place in the game. Jocko Conlan was just that. He found his way into the game through his determination and strength to be part of it. The stories depict the golden age of the time we considered the game our national pastime. What wonderful stories! What a wonderful baseball book!

As a young amateur umpire in 1966, I had bought and read this book by former National League Umpire, Jock Conlan. Well, 33 years later, a little worn and a little tattered, I still have the book amongst my collection. I found it to be a wonderful inspriing book about a fine umpire. It was enjoyable then, just as I think the remake of this book will be enjoyable to your readers now. Truly a collectors' item.

Karl Bodner's America
This is amazing, not only in terms of watercolor technnique but depictions of native American life before the impact of the white man. you will be transported to an earlier time and the watercolors are hauntingly beautiful I have seen the exhibit at the Joslyn in Omaha and never bought the book because of the price, but keep coming back to it in memory, so must have a copy now.

Karl's artistic pieces are some of the best I've seen. He shows the life behind the scenes and people he paints. This is an account of his travels through America when it was still young. If you like watercolor and breathtaking scenery, this book is for you

I'm fortunate to have a couple volumes on Karl Bodmer's work with this one, in my opinion, being the more complete. The other volume is entitled "People of the First Man" subtitled: Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. Bodmer was a Swiss born artist who accompanied the Prince Maximillian of Wied expedition of 1883 as the prince coursed the Missouri River country.

When one opens this book the reader is immediately transported to the Upper Missouri country of 1832-34. With the paintings and sketches taking the reader among the Indian tribes of this area: Lakota (Sioux), Mandans, Hidatsas, Blackfeet, Assiniboins, Kickapoo, Pawnee-Omaha, Cheyenne, Crow, Cree-Gros Ventres, Piegan-Blood, Siksika, Kutenai-Shoshoni, among other tribes. Here for the first time 349 plates with 257 in full color have been given us by the U of Nebraska press. A truly marvelous book.

Soon after Bodmer's passing through this area a smallpox epidemic riddled all these tribes with some such as the Mandans being wiped out of existence. This book not only represents an unusal artifact of the times it illustrates as well people who were very soon to pass out of existence. In all Karl Bodmer had traveled approximately 5,000 miles while executing these priceless works of historical art.

Cannot recommend this volume highly enough!

Semper Fi.

Browsing through this tome transports one to the expedition Bodmer depicts. Accompanying commentary helps place the works in an historic context. The beauty of the works stand alone, but are made especially poignant with 20th century perspective that many of the Native American subjects will soon be destroyed through disease. A stunning collection.

Not only the most throughout chronicle of the sweat lodge ritual, but also one of the best books on contemporary Lakhota religion. Good work!

This book was a wonderful source of information for me to learn more about a ceremony that I'd been through countless times. The Sweatlodge is a powerful ritual on many different levels & this book sheds some light on that, especially for those of us not brought up in the Lakota culture.

This book was very well done. Many people who are looking for information on what to expect from sweatlodges in general will benefit from this book. The author gives a good amount of information about the history and the many different styles of the inipi ceremony. I personally have been in many different inipi (sweatlodge) ceremonies and found that there are different styles but there are a lot of common things as well. This book is well written and well worth the read. The author sticks to just the plains indians style of lodges and does not go to compare with the many different styles of sweatlodges around the country and around the world. I liked that he kept his information consistant and from the people who wanted to share it first hand. There were quite a few people who shared information that might take a lifetime of looking to find.

I read through this book in one day. I couldn't put the book down except to make a coffee. Excellent reading.

Book arrived promptly and in the conditon advertised. I would purchase from this vendor again.

A wonderfuilly constructed and well written history on a subject most Southerners prefer not to talk about. That is a shame because there was little shame in it as men went home to protect their families and farms from advancing Yankee armies. The CSA government recognized this as a rationale when they issued an amnesty program to get the men back. However, once home, many of them faced missing families, destroyed homnes and more, and thus turned to theft. Ultimately, however, these men tended to collect into small irregular units that fed off the local population creating a dangerous situation. Not only did the lack of troops in the armies handicap efforts to"keep the cause alive", so did these irregular bands of deserters by turning the population against the CSA government, and by using local regular troops to hunt them down.

A nicely crafted history that needed to be written.

It often seems that no real new information can be found on the Civil War as it is THE most written about event in our nation's short history. Mark Weitz however has done just that, taken a subject, and wrote an authoritative tome on it.

Desertion is a subject that has seen little serious investigation done, especially on the Confederate side, for several decades. This is a subject that has deserved more work, especially for its effects on the fledgling Confederate nation. In the past, desertion has been at best covered on how it affected states (Alabama gets a very good book covering it's trials on the home front in "McMillians's Disintgration of a Confederate State") and seldom anything approaching a war wide study.

Weitz has done this and in a convincing way to show how desertion become a cyclic monster feeding and growing as it was either ignored or coddled by both state and federal (CS government) entities and the onset of lawlessness on the home front encouraged it. With few exceptions, officers/officials in the CS government tended to be at least sympathetic towards deserters, witness the constant offers of pardon/blanket amnesty that the CS trotted out every few months. While there were officers who shot deserters, they were few in the over all context of the war. The CS had thousands, if not tens of thousands of men who were multiple deserters. Captured or cajoled to return to duty, these men often wasted little time before deserting again. It was a problem that saw armies of deserters in many regions of the South by the end of the war. This was despite, desperately needed CSA soldiers being sent to root out deserters throughout the South during the war.

Weitz argues that many of these men deserted because of the broken social contract between them and those that stayed at the home front; especially the rich and government officials who were to ensure that soldiers' families not starve or suffer while the men were away fighting. Other factors he argues such as the loss of the border states (retreats from them saw a huge wave of desertion), decisive defeats in 1862 (it is believed a majority of paroled Confederates may have deserted while at home awaiting exchange), the Conscription Act of 1862, oppression of home front Unionists/neutrals, tax in kind impressment, growing perception of a 'rich man's war, poor man's fight'; all contributed to the outflow of men from the Confederate armies--many with their arms and equipment.

These men, allied directly with local Unionists, or lawlessly preying on anyone nearby, or simply resisting any form of the Confederacy they encountered, made up a third front. This third front was one the Confederacy never really paid much attention to until it was too late. Between local/state courts invalidating conscription calls or the inability of state/local forces to control what in many areas was battalion to brigade sized forces, the Confederacy saw strangled commerce and an inability to extract recruits or resources. At the same time it made soldiers at the distant fronts more concerned about families in what was supposed to be safe areas. All of this, long before Federal forces ever got anywhere near such places.

The numbers are hard to argue with though some may have cause to debate calling stragglers or men coming in late from leave deserters as Weitz does, but it is impossible to argue that even a temporary loss of these men hurt Confederate war making abilities. Weitz also believes that a more severe policy of shooting more deserters could have forestalled enough of these men from leaving. In my opinion, it was far more likely to have ignited more armed mutinies instead.

Though expensive, this book is well worth the cost for anyone even remotely serious about this war. Heavily documented, well written ,and interlaced with many first person vignettes, this book has a place on one's shelf. Hopefully, someone will do a similar job on Federal forces soon.

Few images are more enduring than the Confederate infantryman, clad in rags, blanket roll, slouch hat, dirty beyond belief with an immaculate rifle in hand. Standing without fear against long odds, he endures cold and hunger for "the cause" fighting to the bitter end. This book is NOT an attack on that image, rather it documents that there are multiple images in every great event and all of them can be true. Mr. Weitz has written a very readable, intelligent and thought provoking account of desertion and draft dodging in the Confederacy. He validates the image of the Confederate infantryman while showing us that other images are equally valid and need to be understood.

The heart of the book is a year-by-year account of desertion in each theater coupled with the military and political response. Every student of Civil War history knows about how understanding most armies were of "French Leave". In addition, we know that the South was not as solid as legend suggests but contained significant pockets of "Tories" throughout the war. That is a simple and somewhat straightforward story that hardly seems worthy of a book. If this was all that the author had to give, I would have been unable to finish the book.

First, we have a discussion of why non-slave owing White subsistence farmers are willing to fight and their understanding of the "contract" with the CSA. This is a very interesting subject that the author deftly handles, giving us a look into rural Southern life lacking in many books. This contract' while unwritten but understood forms the foundation upon which these men build their service. They leave expecting the government to care for and protect their homes. This includes seeing that their family is not in want. Documentation shows that the men, the states and Richmond fully understood this unwritten contract with each party aware of their obligations. This discussion might be one of the best explanations of why the CSA succeeded thru 1862 that I have found.

A second very strong point is the discussion of how men felt about areas that were not "home". This becomes critical as the war progresses but the standard civilian view and fear of armies translates into feelings that civilians in [insert state name here] are not supporting the cause and the fighting men. This perception of no support leads to alienation as men decide that this area is not home. For a nation based on the idea of home, this decision excludes the area from the nation.

In 1861 desertion is not a major problem Homesickness, "what have I done?" and problems within the unit are the driving forces. The military is very tolerant of desertion and most deserters face reduced charges when and if they return. "French leave" and straggling are accepted and returning to your unit takes care of the problem. This toleration and the requirement of returning to the original unit become fixed ideas in the military and the governments. Later, these policies cause real problems but no one seems to be able to fully reject them and make a fresh start.

1862 is a critical year for the Confederacy, seeing conscription, inflation, shortages, war profiteering, bloody battles and loss of territory. Desertion becomes a major problem, links with draft dogging and receives active support from the new Union government in Tennessee. As homes disappear behind Union lines, men can go home free of military service by "swearing the oath". Tennessee is very active enticing men to leave CSA service, come home and sit out the war. In time, Grant becomes involved by exempting Confederate deserters and draft dodgers from the Union conscription laws. As the problems grow, response is mired in the policies of 1861 and the issue of state's rights. One state court rules that catching deserters and draft dodgers is a national issue and the state cannot participate.

Beset by internal problems, with Union armies advancing and bloodier battles, in 1863 the dam breaks. Desertion reaches epic proportions in every army in spite of amnesty proclamations, general orders and a few executions. Worse, not all men can get home and many join together to survive. These organized bands are larger, well trained, experience better armed and able to overwhelm local militia. They prey off the civilian population, providing a haven for resistance to taxes and the draft. In some areas, these men control the law making it impossible to collect taxes or to arrest them. The author does an excellent job of linking this to the earlier question of what these men considered a nation and how they felt about areas outside of "home". Once again, local Union commanders take advantage of the situation providing arms and supplies in some areas. In other areas, a 3-way fight develops between these bands, the local militia and the Union army. Trapped are Southern civilians and the men that have stayed in the army. The contract is broken forcing them to make hard decision based on their true loyalties and responsibilities. The author fully captures the pain this choice caused and how these men are forced into this decision.

Government response is inadequate and might be called wishful thinking. In the face of appeals from both the military and the states, the government continues the failed policies of 1861 with few exceptions. The book contains examples where a local commander is able to produce results by breaking up bands and capturing men. However, requirements for men at the front, politics and policies never managed to produce a solution that is more than temporary.

By 1864, the South has lost the war. More men see this and respond by going home, often behind Union lines. The numbers are surprising even for a student of the war. What is often passed off as "French Leave" or AWOL is really a loss of manpower the South cannot afford while being unable to implement policies that will stop it.

This unique and valuable study needs to be in the library of every serious student of the war. While a scholarly text, it is an interesting, informative and enjoyable read.

I have a feeling this book will continue to draw acclaim as the months and years go by, for it must be the standard biography for some time to come. Drawing on a wealth of material from the artist's family, Janis Londraville and Richard Londraville have managed to animate a long forgotten story, and it has made me completely interested in Paul Swan's works in all their guises. It's hard to imagine today the ease with which Paul Swan seems to have said to himself, "Well, painting is only making me this famous, I think I'll add another string to my bow and become an interpretative dancer"? How often does that happen, and how often does any arrist excel in both wildly competitive fields?

Janis Londraville and Richard Londraville hint that Swan's good looks helped him along here and there. With so many photos of him spread throughout the book, a concordance of beauty begins to take shape in the reader's mind. Is he the "most beautiful man in the world" as his press agents claimed? It's a type of good looks you don't see very much today, or if you do, you see them in leading men who are just average looking--say, the Bill Pullman look. (Take a gander at the book jacket photo.) But Swan knew how to work his look, and he studied the Egyptian arts of presentation, so that his dances resembled early versions of Madonna's "Vogue" movements, with hand manipulations framing the face, the body, the long legs and the cinched in waist. He could have been a contender in the movies, but alas, he let the camera come close a little too late (he was already 40 when he played a herald in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (first version) by Cecil B. DeMille. In fact his age was always getting in his way, like a clumsy, ardent teenage boy stumbling over his erection. In old age he was still performing his "Grecian" and "classic" dances in which, apparently, he would dance off his seven veils and at the end reveal the original naked body Isadora Duncan had fondled way back in the day. In his prime, when he went to Greece, Greek newspapers claimed that their statuary had come to life and was walking in American clothes! "See him and then see our marbles! Is he not the Hermes of Praxiteles come to life again? Or is he Antinous?"

He was sort of a dramatic Paul Lynde sort of queen except without a sense of humor, and not much of a dad to his two long suffering daughters. The authors luckily had his unpublished memoirs to draw on, and they are adept in art criticism to a scary extent, coming close to persuading me that Paul Swan's painting is necessary, like Thomas Hart Benton or Jackson Pollock. At any rate he is an American Rousseau, for good or bad, and I would love a companion volume with full color plates of all his surviving work, And what a shame that the authors worked hard interviewing nearly every available witness who knew the old man, and in a touching vignette they report that one, the actress Lisan Kaye, who posed as the Empress Theodora in 1944 for Swan, can't remember him at all, trapped as she is in her Alzheimer's disease. Something very Swanlike about that inability.

Do the authors cheat in subtitling their book "from Wilde to Warhol," considering that Swan actually never did meet Oscar Wilde? Yes, a little, I think, but it suits the carnival barker aspect of their subject, for whom no publicity was bad publicity.

I have had the privilege of working with Janis and Richard Londraville as an intern, and as a gift for assisting them with the exhibition of Paul Swan's works that Janis is curating at the SUNY Potsdam campus, I recieved an autographed copy of their book. I simply couldn't put it down! The authors did an amazing job of telling the story of Paul Swan, and after I'd finished the book, I felt as if I'd known the artist for years. This is a wonderful, amazing book and I'm glad I got the opportunity to work with the authors on an exhibit of Paul Swan's works. Everyone should read this book!

When I read the review in the Hollywood Reporter, I figured the book was worth a look. Indeed, it was. I can't say it better than HR: The book should have screen actors guild members "turning pages with one hand and dialing their agents with the other." This is a visual book, filled with images. There is a lot of power is this crazy artist's life. --Another artist.

If this were fiction, it would almost be unbelievable. As a biography, it's simply fascinating to read what he did, who he knew, and how he survived during that time in history. An excellent exploration of art, sexuality, personality. You will burn through it.

A must have for writers looking to explore the world of American Indians through Academia. This book makes a great place to start for any writers outside the world of the American Indian because it informs from the perspective necessary to invoke change in the poorly and mainly Euroview of the American experience. The essays are insightful and informative and I found the bibliographies at the ends of each chapter a gift that only research freaks like me could enjoy. Thanks for the direction and how about a Volume 2?

Professor Mihesuah does an excellent job, as writer and editor, promoting a new model for American Indian studies, one more cognizant that the scientific/historical assumptions of the academy are themselves culturally loaded against a just understanding and representation of American Indians. Personally, I think this is true of much modern culture as well; one reason academics have such a hard time figuring out what to do with (and how to talk about) rock and roll, for instance, is that it doesn't quite fit the categories western civilization has developed so far. This is a fine collection of essays, one that should be required reading for all PhD candidates in the humanities.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. The book addressed the issue of disrespecting the oral tradition of American Indian cultures by writing about them. This is something that has concerned me, especially as I look into continuing my studies through a PhD program.

Aside from the excellent job Professor Mihesuah does (both as writer and editor) in presenting the case for creating a different model for understanding American Indian history and culture, the essays here offer a much needed balance to academic presumptions about the primacy of scientific (as it were) fact. Should be required reading for all Ph.D. candidates in the humanities.

There are few writers as capable and dangerous as Gonzalez. His images, no matter how shocking, come out so enviably true that it's difficult to put this poetry book down. And were poetry as visible as, say, movies, this book would be constantly in the news with this group protesting the brutal scenes, that group praising the artistry, this group condemning some sin or other, and that group reveling in the use of imagery so necessary and natural that whole sections of the book should be required reading for anyone sending poems to magazines or reading them aloud at open mics.

Lines from his poem "In Praise of the Mouth" somewhat exemplifies that thought: "Even the alligator's dangerous parade of teeth/looks beautiful because it celebrates the mouth." And these poems DO celebrate things we might deem dangerous, but they never lose track of the humanity of the people involved. Though some sexual poems cross into physical hurt, they don't do so gratuitously and they don't lose track of the beating hearts in all the characters.

In the poem "The Untimely Return of My Dead," a dead lover returns to knock on the door, causing some panic and worry and some self-reflection: "...And lately/even my mouth has begun to overcome its shyness,/welcoming words like a strong flock of swallows//and not like the panic of bats." And ends: "...The knocking stops. I'm relieved/and saddened. That even in his death he cannot piece/himself together. And even in the streets his wardrobe runs/away from him, divided among different men."

This is writing that seems effortless in how smoothly it works. Well worth reading no matter who you are.

With this his eighth book, award-winning poet, novelist and memoirist Rigoberto González brings us an unapologetically erotic and, at times, brutal homage to Gay relationships in all their permutations. In the title poem, the narrator contemplates the inherent danger--and exhilaration--of meeting a man at a bar: "I dance, I drink, I follow. / I can trust a man without clothes. / Naked he conceals no weapons, no threat / but the blood in his erection." There's the surprise of finding a lover who has a button fetish in "Breads That Hunger": "He yanks each piece of / plastic with his teeth and swallows it, then inserts the / cusp of his tongue into the buttonhole." And yes, there are unabashed love poems with erotic tributes such as these first lines from "In Praise of the Mouth": "Your throat, moan-cluttered, opens / like a desert's flower." But in "Body, Anti-Body," there can also be disillusionment when boredom sets in: "His lust became wallpaper- / tame after only a year / in his bed." In all, González offers us tough, as nothing less than essential and unified elements of life. [This review first appeared in the MultiCultural Review.]

Literary critic and award winning poet Rigoberto Gonzalez's latest collection of strongly recommended and descriptive verse comprise the pages of "Other Fugitives And Other Strangers", providing an appreciative readership with a compendium of his lyrical poetry and prose that is best characterized by its intellectual intensity and emotional integrity. Writing with a dedication to candor and the power of language to communicate with precision, each poems is a true gem that will linger in the mind and in the emotional responses of the reader long after "Other Fugitives And Other Strangers" has been released and set back upon the shelf. 'Breads That Hunger': I make love to a man with a button fetish. Correction: a man makes love to my shirt. He yanks each piece of plastic with his teeth and swallow sit, then inserts the cusp of his tongue into the buttonhole. I slip out of the sleeves and off the bed and he scarcely notices. Later, he comes looking for me; my shirt slumped across his shoulder. It looks as if I have shed my skin - the fantasy of meeting the train on the rusty tacks comes to life. Buttonless, I have been stripped of everything that holds me together. He tells me he can replace the shirt. I tell him he can keep me.

The dissonance created by the title of Rigoberto González's second book of poetry Other Fugitives and Other Strangers is his genius for connecting the clatters of humanity and pressing them against their own harmonies. As difficult as it may be to imagine work as kaleidoscopically brutal and political as it is delicate and insightful as González's debut collection So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks (University of Illinois Press, 1999) in this collection he demonstrates greater depth and a more keenly honed sense of the interior. As much as these are poems of desire--the erotic and the spiritual--bodies, couplings, urges, longings become the locations through which González pleaches the most vulnerable concerns of the human experiences, so that love, lust, joy, despair, danger and its terrors seemed to be laid bare on the page for the very first time. This is an American poet who takes his cues from a long line of great American poets, unfair to invent, uncover and pioneer what he needs to get to what he sees and hears. Humane, wicked, intelligent, puckish, tender as he is prickly, González is the real deal. Él le conmoverá.