Product details
- ISBN 9781597143974
- Dimensions: 139 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 13 Dec 2018
- Publisher: Heyday Books
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Essays and short stories from a celebrated Cupeño/Cahuilla journalist.
"Johnson is by turns tender and hilarious—as ever. This book is a welcome addition to his loving history of the world as he knows it." —Susan Straight, author of Sacrament
In this deeply moving collection of short stories and essays, Gordon Lee Johnson (Cupeño/Cahuilla) cements his voice not only as a wry commentator on American Indian reservation life but also as a master of fiction writing. In Johnson's stories, all of which are set on the fictional San Ignacio reservation in Southern California, we meet unforgettable characters like Plato Pena, the Stanford-bound geek who reads Kahlil Gibran during intertribal softball games; hardboiled investigator Roddy Foo; and Etta, whose motto is “early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise,” as they face down circumstances by turns ordinary and devastating. From the noir-tinged mystery of "Unholy Wine" to the gripping intensity of "Tukwut," Johnson effortlessly switches genre, perspective, and tense, vividly evoking people and places that are fictional but profoundly true to life. The nonfiction featured in Bird Songs Don't Lie is equally revelatory in its exploration of complex connections between past and present. Whether examining his own conflicted feelings toward the missions as a source of both cultural damage and identity, sharing advice for cooking for eight dozen cowboys and -girls, or recounting an influx of New Age seekers of enlightenment in the Pushcart-nominated "100 White Women," Johnson plumbs the comedy, catastrophe, and beauty of his life on the Pala Reservation to thunderous effect.
Gordon Lee Johnson (Cahuilla/Cupeño) lives and writes on the Pala Indian Reservation. A former newspaperman, he was last a columnist and feature writer for the Press-Enterprise, covering Southern California's Inland Empire. He is also the author of Rez Dogs Eat Beans and Fast Cars and Frybread.
