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Last Standing Woman
1997
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Traces the lives of seven generations of an Ojibwa family, beginnning in the 1860s - (Baker & Taylor)

A powerful and poignant novel tracing the lives of seven generations of Anishinaabe (O)bwe/Chippewa).'...an impressive fiction debut....skillfully intertwines social history. oral myth and character study...." Publishers Weekly.
- (Mbi Pub Co)

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Booklist Reviews

Native American activist LaDuke delivers an assured first novel following seven generations of Ojibwa. Featuring a cast of more than 50 characters, beginning in the 1860s and projecting through the year 2001, Last Standing Woman is a sweeping indictment of the racism and oppression directed at Native Americans. In short, atmospheric chapters, LaDuke delineates a reservations' struggle to reclaim its identity in the face of land swindling, missionaries and their boarding schools, government housing projects, and alcoholism and sexual abuse. LaDuke's ambitious effort to tell her people's story in some 200 pages is most effective at the outset; the latter half detailing a reservation uprising in the early '90s suffers from a certain didacticism. Still, humor and compassion are ever present, and at its best, Last Standing Woman is a dignified and powerful retelling of one reservation's struggle for survival. ((Reviewed November 1, 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Library Journal Reviews

Native American activist LaDuke, a Harvard-educated member of the Anishinaabe Nation, has given us a powerful first novel that presents the lives of seven generations of Anishinaabe (Ojibwe/Chippewa) from initial contact with whites in the 1860s to a surprisingly utopian peak in conditions early in the next century. LaDuke's characters are as vital and fully realized as any in a Louise Erdrich novel, but instead of dwelling on the quiet desperation of their lives, as Erdrich so often does, LaDuke finds ways for them to surmount their circumstances and offer support for one another. Following the lives of a series of women named Last Standing Woman, LaDuke's chronicle moves to the beat of the drums that symbolize Native culture and its survival despite the odds. A fine work; recommended for both public and academic libraries.?Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati Technical Coll. Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

An Indian-rights activist and former vice-presidential candidate (Green Party, 1996), LaDuke makes an impressive fiction debut in this provocative if tendentious first novel. Rooted in LaDuke's own Anishinaabe heritage, the novel skillfully intertwines social history, oral myth and character study in ways reminiscent of Leslie Marmon Silko and Louise Erdrich. Stretching from 1800 into the near future but set mostly in this century, the narrative focuses on events at LaDuke's own White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Episodes of the so-called Great Sioux Uprising of 1862 are poignantly recalled as a prelude to the later struggles for dignity and self-determination that dominate the plot. At the center of these are Ishkweniibawiikwe (the Last Standing Woman of the title) and Lucy St. Clair, both strong women who resist continued U.S. persecution and corrupt tribal governments. In a climactic incident reminiscent of the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee, revolutionary Indians forcibly take over their reservation and assert their independence. A list of dramatis personae and glossary of Anishinaabe words aid the reader. (Nov.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews

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