The Beadworkers: Stories

Synopsis:

Beth Piatote's luminous debut collection opens with a feast, grounding its stories in the landscapes and lifeworlds of the Native Northwest, exploring the inventive and unforgettable pattern of Native American life in the contemporary world.

Told with humor, subtlety, and beautiful spareness, the mixed-genre works of Beth Piatote's first collection find unifying themes in the strength of kinship, the pulse of longing, and the language of return.

A woman teaches her niece to make a pair of beaded earrings while ruminating on a fractured relationship. An eleven-year-old girl narrates the unfolding of the Fish Wars in the 1960s as her family is gradually drawn to the front lines of the conflict. In 1890, as tensions escalate at Wounded Knee, two young men at college—one French and the other Lakota—each contemplate a death in the family. In the final, haunting piece, a Nez Perce/Cayuse family is torn apart as they debate the fate of ancestral remains in a moving revision of the Greek tragedyAntigone.

Formally inventive, witty, and generous,The Beadworkers, a singular debut collection, draws on Indigenous aesthetics and forms to offer a powerful, sustaining vision of Native life in the Americas.

Reviews
"Beth Piatote has created a ritual of clarity, transformation, and wonder. Elegant and vivid, her book is alive, and it will make its readers see the world in a bright new light. I can't recommend it highly enough." —Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels

"Piatote is Nez Perce, and a Native American Studies professor at UC Berkeley. In this eloquent and elucidating debut story collection she brings the Native experience to life—from the long line of broken treaties and the tragic effect on Native tribes from coast to coast to contemporary repercussions from forced attendance at Indian boarding schools . . . Piatote draws the reader in with spare and perceptive language and resonate empathy for each struggling yet resilient character." —Booklist

"Piatote’s debut collection mixes poetry, verse, and prose to form an impressive reflection on the lives of modern Native Americans. Piatote, a Nez Perce enrolled with the Colville Confederated Tribes, fits much nuance and profundity into stories that often reflect on the ways in which contemporary mainstream American culture continues to erase the identities and traditions of indigenous groups . . . This beautiful collection announces Piatote as a writer to watch." —Publishers Weekly

"Hope and heartbreak abound in this debut collection set among Native Americans in the northwest . . . Piatote balances the emotional complexities of her characters' lives with the political complexity of their relationship with an America all too eager to look away. A poignant and challenging look at the way the past and present collide." —Kirkus Reviews

"The Beadworkers is beautifully crafted with indigenous storytelling techniques and narrative designs. Throughout, Beth Piatote renders Native American life in all its emotional complexity, profound tragedy, subversive humor, and transformative resilience. After the final drum beat, this book becomes an offering to ancestors, a feast of words, and a water song flowing across generations." —Craig Santos Perez, author of from unincorporated territory [lukao]

"The Beadworkers is an essential celebration of language, kinship, and the enduring power of story. In an exhilarating diversity of voices and literary forms, and with extraordinary heart and artistic precision, this book moves, teaches, and surprises. Beth Piatote is a writer to cherish and trust." ––David Chariandy, author of I've Been Meaning to Tell You

"Beth Piatote's incisive debut eschews the boundaries of genre so as to paint a polyphonic image of Indigenous life past and present.The Beadworkers reveals a writer who deeply understands the norms that govern Indigenous aesthetics, a writer who navigates the choppy waters of representation expertly, nuancing and complicating as she goes with an intellectual and narrative bravery that inspires. This is an important addition to a new wave of Indigenous writing in North America!" ––Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of NDN Coping Mechanisms andThis Wound is a World

“I loved it! It was like an adventure into Indian Thinking. Beth Piatote weaves characters, myths, emotions, and elements together like she is weaving a fine Plateau cornhusk bag. The stories engage your senses, emotions, and memories like a trip to the reservation. I knew I wanted to read this book again before I was even halfway through! I could feel the wind from the river, and I could smell the fragrance of freshly picked huckleberries on a warm summer day by reading her words and going to her places in the book. I could identify with some characters, and other familiar characters resounded with me to the point that it felt like this book was written just for me. I think a lot of people could get that feeling from reading this book." ––Marcus Amerman, traditional beadworker

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.50" x 8.25"