Eric L. Gansworth

Seventh-grader Lewis "Shoe" Blake from the Tuscarora Reservation has a new friend, George Haddonfield from the local Air Force base, but in 1975 upstate New York there is a lot of tension and hatred between Native Americans and Whites—and Lewis is not sure that he can rely on friendship.

If I Ever Get Out of Here

Welcome to the Seventh Annual Conference of the Society for Protection and Reclamation of Indian Images. Expect to find, amid all the refined cultural observations, academic posturing, and political maneuvering, an Indian who defies anyone to protect, let alone reclaim, her image. This is Shirley Mounter, a Tuscarora woman and the chief storyteller among the acerbic, eloquent, and often hilarious speakers who overflow the pages of this latest novel by the noted Onondaga writer Eric Gansworth. A lecture on Indian stereotypes by Shirley?s daughter, art historian Annie Boans, calls forth Shirley?s recollections, whose outpourings deposit us in the turbulent yet restorative waters of modern Iroquoian reservation life, always flowing and eddying around kin. ø Indeed, Shirley?s house and land are now, after a long and bitter fight, forever lost to her in the construction of a water reservoir that feeds the government?s hydroelectric plant. The story of this battle is the story of Shirley?s generation and the faltering generation that follows?of violent love and losses, of children turning away only to find themselves forever negotiating the nuances of identity, of popular culture in jarring juxtaposition with the sometimes even more incredible realities of Native life. Weaving a complex narrative illustrated with his own paintings, Gansworth creates a rich, wry, and multifaceted tapestry of the intricate twists and turns of coincidence, memories, and stories that bind Native families together.

Mending Skins

"Every winter, Tommy Jack McMorsey makes the long haul from Texas to northern Minnesota to watch the meteor showers. One cold night, in a moment of kindness, Tommy picks up a deluded Japanese tourist determined to find the buried ransom money from the movie Fargo. When she dies of exposure in Tommy Jack's care, a media storm erupts, jarring loose pieces of Tommy Jack's past: the horrors of Vietnam, a love affair, and the suicide of his closest friend, Fred Howkowski" --Cover, p. 4.

Extra Indians

The power struggle between traditionalists and progressives on a modern-day reservation is at the center of Eric Gansworth's latest work of fiction. Through the characters and their unique ?voices,” he deftly develops the multiple viewpoints and arguments that currently exist on many reservations. These voices include a traditional chief and a modern-day group of young adults who, as neglected children, banded together in a traditional dance group. The narrative thread that connects these characters uses the metaphor of traditional dance and its relationship to the integrity of Iroquois culture. A number of the dance group have come to work in the growing empire formed by one of their members?selling tax-free cigarettes and gasoline on reservation land. This new economic base alters the balance of power on the reservation. At the center of the conflict is Fiction Tunny, a dancer and developing love interest of a man in the smoke business. She is also the illegitimate daughter of the chief, who refuses to acknowledge her; to admit she exists would be to admit he is not fit for his role of chief. Fiction's resentment of her father and the sometimes archaic nature of his life and government are juxtaposed with the predatory nature of the entrepreneur who begins pursuing her sexually at all costs. Fiction seeks a balance, a path that will ground her identity in tradition while following her ever-changing culture into the future.

Smoke Dancing

A slice of the rez but also a peek into the heart and the mind of those who live the rez or walked off in new boots. Rooted in truth as good poetry is, [Gansworth's] is a most realistic look at life, and his inimical way of expressing this reality is of depth and a dart into illumniation with an extraordinary vision. --Maurice Kenny.

Iroquois Moon : Poems and Paintings

Nickel Eclipse

The first work of fiction published in the MSU Press American Indian Studies Series, Indian Summers concerns issues of identity for Native Americans. Set against the backdrop of a contemporary reservation that has had its own losses to the dominant culture--a third of its total land mass taken earlier in the century for a New York State water reservoir, its only religious structures Christian churches--Indian Summers introduces these identity conflicts through the lives and circumstances of its major characters. This is a time when belonging to a tribe is difficult, when dominant societal forces encourage either the acts of abandoning a perceived anachronistic lifestyle or of embracing one of a number of simplistic, prescribed, false identities: warrior, environmentalist, crystal-carrying shaman. None of these options is real for the individuals who populate these pockets of different--not alternative--societies. The people who live these lives do not explore alternatives, nor do they necessarily have the desire to--inextricably entwined as they are with their families, culture, history, and land.

Eric L. Gansworth

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