Author: Breena Clarke
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0759520070
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
The acclaimed bestseller -- a selection of Oprah's Book Club -- that brings vividly to life the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, circa 1925, and a community reeling from a young girl's tragic death. When five-year-old Clara Bynum drowns in the Potomac River under a seemingly haunted rock outcropping known locally as the Three Sisters, the community must reconcile themselves to the bitter tragedy. Clarke powerful charts the fallout from Clara's death on the people she has left behind: her parents, Alice and Willie Bynum, torn between the old world of their rural North Carolina home and the new world of the city; the friends and relatives of the Bynum family in the Georgetown neighborhood they now call home; and, most especially, Clara's sister, ten-year-old Johnnie Mae, who is thrust into adolescence and must come to terms with the terrible and confused emotions stirred by her sister's death. This highly accomplished debut novel reverberates with ideas, impassioned lyricism, and poignant historical detail as it captures an essential and moving portrait of the Washington, DC community.
River, Cross My Heart
Author: Breena Clarke
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0759520070
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
The acclaimed bestseller -- a selection of Oprah's Book Club -- that brings vividly to life the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, circa 1925, and a community reeling from a young girl's tragic death. When five-year-old Clara Bynum drowns in the Potomac River under a seemingly haunted rock outcropping known locally as the Three Sisters, the community must reconcile themselves to the bitter tragedy. Clarke powerful charts the fallout from Clara's death on the people she has left behind: her parents, Alice and Willie Bynum, torn between the old world of their rural North Carolina home and the new world of the city; the friends and relatives of the Bynum family in the Georgetown neighborhood they now call home; and, most especially, Clara's sister, ten-year-old Johnnie Mae, who is thrust into adolescence and must come to terms with the terrible and confused emotions stirred by her sister's death. This highly accomplished debut novel reverberates with ideas, impassioned lyricism, and poignant historical detail as it captures an essential and moving portrait of the Washington, DC community.
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0759520070
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
The acclaimed bestseller -- a selection of Oprah's Book Club -- that brings vividly to life the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, circa 1925, and a community reeling from a young girl's tragic death. When five-year-old Clara Bynum drowns in the Potomac River under a seemingly haunted rock outcropping known locally as the Three Sisters, the community must reconcile themselves to the bitter tragedy. Clarke powerful charts the fallout from Clara's death on the people she has left behind: her parents, Alice and Willie Bynum, torn between the old world of their rural North Carolina home and the new world of the city; the friends and relatives of the Bynum family in the Georgetown neighborhood they now call home; and, most especially, Clara's sister, ten-year-old Johnnie Mae, who is thrust into adolescence and must come to terms with the terrible and confused emotions stirred by her sister's death. This highly accomplished debut novel reverberates with ideas, impassioned lyricism, and poignant historical detail as it captures an essential and moving portrait of the Washington, DC community.
Angels Make Their Hope Here
Author: Breena Clarke
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316253995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
Russell's Knob is not paradise. But already in 1849 this New Jersey highlands settlement is home to a diverse population of blacks, whites, and reds who have intermarried and lived in relative harmony for generations. It is a haven for Dossie Bird, who has escaped north along the Underground Railroad and now feels the embrace of the Smoot family. Duncan Smoot presides as accidental patriarch, protector of his enterprising sister, Hattie, and his two rambunctious nephews. As Dossie busies herself with cleaning, cooking, and tending the chickens at Duncan's homestead, she wonders: Could this man, her rescuer -- so godlike in her eyes, so much older than she -- expect her to become his helpmeet?. Tentatively, Dossie begins to put down roots -- until a shocking act of violence propels her away from Russell's Knob and eventually into the mayhem of New York City's mean streets. With the same storytelling brio that distinguished the acclaimed novels River, Cross My Heart and Stand the Storm, Breena Clarke weaves a richly dramatic story of interracial harmony in the Civil War era -- and of one woman's triumph in the crucible of history.
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316253995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
Russell's Knob is not paradise. But already in 1849 this New Jersey highlands settlement is home to a diverse population of blacks, whites, and reds who have intermarried and lived in relative harmony for generations. It is a haven for Dossie Bird, who has escaped north along the Underground Railroad and now feels the embrace of the Smoot family. Duncan Smoot presides as accidental patriarch, protector of his enterprising sister, Hattie, and his two rambunctious nephews. As Dossie busies herself with cleaning, cooking, and tending the chickens at Duncan's homestead, she wonders: Could this man, her rescuer -- so godlike in her eyes, so much older than she -- expect her to become his helpmeet?. Tentatively, Dossie begins to put down roots -- until a shocking act of violence propels her away from Russell's Knob and eventually into the mayhem of New York City's mean streets. With the same storytelling brio that distinguished the acclaimed novels River, Cross My Heart and Stand the Storm, Breena Clarke weaves a richly dramatic story of interracial harmony in the Civil War era -- and of one woman's triumph in the crucible of history.
Stand the Storm
Author: Breena Clarke
Publisher: Little Brown GBR
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
A gripping novel about a family's surprising journey out of slavery.
Publisher: Little Brown GBR
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
A gripping novel about a family's surprising journey out of slavery.
My Heart Will Cross This Ocean
Author: Kadiatou Diallo
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 0307538761
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Descended from West African kings and healers, raised in the turbulence of Guinea in the 1960s, Kadiatou Diallo was married off at the age of thirteen and bore her first child when she was sixteen. Twenty-three years later, that child—a gentle, innocent young man named Amadou Diallo—was gunned down without cause on the streets of New York City. Now Kadi Diallo tells the astonishing, inspiring story of her life, her loss, and the defiant strength she has always found within. It was Kadi Diallo’s voice that captivated the public when she came to America to defend her slain son, and it is that same voice—candid, wise, and generous—that fills the pages of this extraordinary book. Kadi reaches back to her earliest memories of growing up in Guinea, the daughter of a strict man who was thwarted by the relics of the French colonial system. Raised in a world in which age-old religious and cultural rituals were disappearing before the onslaught of modernity, Kadi saw her own childhood end abruptly at age thirteen when her father literally gave her away in marriage. Kadi prayed for death, but instead she found herself plunged into a baffling new life—the life of a second wife in a strange household in a distant country, and soon afterwards the teenage mother of a sweet-natured son. Yet somehow, Kadi managed not only to survive but to flourish. Despite the rigid strictures of African-Islamic culture, she attended school and later started a successful business of her own. She eventually divorced and remarried and lived for eight years in Bangkok. Back in Guinea, she learned that her oldest child Amadou had been shot in New York City in a case of racial profiling. Kadi read with outrage the American newspaper description of her son as “an unarmed West African street vendor.” “Nothing,” she writes, “could be more distant from the truth.” Now, with great pride and searing love, Kadi Diallo finally tells the truth about herself and her son. My Heart Will Cross This Ocean is an extraordinary book—a girl’s story of desire and innocence, a wife’s story of defiance, a mother’s story of unbearable loss, and a woman’s story of unshakable strength and love.
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 0307538761
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Descended from West African kings and healers, raised in the turbulence of Guinea in the 1960s, Kadiatou Diallo was married off at the age of thirteen and bore her first child when she was sixteen. Twenty-three years later, that child—a gentle, innocent young man named Amadou Diallo—was gunned down without cause on the streets of New York City. Now Kadi Diallo tells the astonishing, inspiring story of her life, her loss, and the defiant strength she has always found within. It was Kadi Diallo’s voice that captivated the public when she came to America to defend her slain son, and it is that same voice—candid, wise, and generous—that fills the pages of this extraordinary book. Kadi reaches back to her earliest memories of growing up in Guinea, the daughter of a strict man who was thwarted by the relics of the French colonial system. Raised in a world in which age-old religious and cultural rituals were disappearing before the onslaught of modernity, Kadi saw her own childhood end abruptly at age thirteen when her father literally gave her away in marriage. Kadi prayed for death, but instead she found herself plunged into a baffling new life—the life of a second wife in a strange household in a distant country, and soon afterwards the teenage mother of a sweet-natured son. Yet somehow, Kadi managed not only to survive but to flourish. Despite the rigid strictures of African-Islamic culture, she attended school and later started a successful business of her own. She eventually divorced and remarried and lived for eight years in Bangkok. Back in Guinea, she learned that her oldest child Amadou had been shot in New York City in a case of racial profiling. Kadi read with outrage the American newspaper description of her son as “an unarmed West African street vendor.” “Nothing,” she writes, “could be more distant from the truth.” Now, with great pride and searing love, Kadi Diallo finally tells the truth about herself and her son. My Heart Will Cross This Ocean is an extraordinary book—a girl’s story of desire and innocence, a wife’s story of defiance, a mother’s story of unbearable loss, and a woman’s story of unshakable strength and love.
One More River to Cross
Author: Jane Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Revell
ISBN: 1493419498
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
In 1844, two years before the Donner Party, the Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land and enjoyed a safe journey--until October, when a heavy snowstorm forced difficult decisions. The first of many for young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, the widow Ellen Murphy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Maolisa. When the party separates in three directions, each risks losing those they loved and faces the prospect of learning that adversity can destroy or redefine. Two women and four men go overland around Lake Tahoe, three men stay to guard the heaviest wagons--and the rest of the party, including eight women and seventeen children, huddle in a makeshift cabin at the headwaters of the Yuba River waiting for rescue . . . or their deaths. Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick plunges you deep into a landscape of challenge where fear and courage go hand in hand for a story of friendship, family, and hope that will remind you of what truly matters in times of trial.
Publisher: Revell
ISBN: 1493419498
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
In 1844, two years before the Donner Party, the Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land and enjoyed a safe journey--until October, when a heavy snowstorm forced difficult decisions. The first of many for young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, the widow Ellen Murphy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Maolisa. When the party separates in three directions, each risks losing those they loved and faces the prospect of learning that adversity can destroy or redefine. Two women and four men go overland around Lake Tahoe, three men stay to guard the heaviest wagons--and the rest of the party, including eight women and seventeen children, huddle in a makeshift cabin at the headwaters of the Yuba River waiting for rescue . . . or their deaths. Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick plunges you deep into a landscape of challenge where fear and courage go hand in hand for a story of friendship, family, and hope that will remind you of what truly matters in times of trial.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: I'm Speaking Now
Author: Amy Newmark
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1611590833
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Now more than ever, the strong, independent, courageous voices of Black women are being heard loud and clear. They share their truth about life, love, family, faith and hope in these 101 personal stories and 12 powerful poems. The world is listening. Black women are speaking, for themselves and their families, and everyone is listening. This unique collection of stories is for readers of all colors, not just the Black community, as these contributors share their dreams, their triumphs and failures, and their lives, which have unique challenges and hardships that are not well understood by others. Readers of color will recognize their own struggles in these pages, and white readers will benefit from an inside view of Black life in America, Canada and beyond. These 101 stories and 12 poems, written by and for Black women, cover it all—from fierce to funny—about hopes and dreams, fears and realities, identity and self-discovery, family, children, even hair. Each one starts with a quote connecting you to a wellspring of wisdom from historical and contemporary Black women. “We are speaking now,” says Breena Clarke, coauthor of this book. “Because the moment is now, in this collection of first-person narratives. This is an opportunity to hear the often silenced voices of Black women, writing for you and because of you. These are stories of universal human experiences but also reflect the specificity of Black women’s lives in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.” Everyone will benefit from this look into the culture, wisdom, and everyday reality of the Black experience, with 11 chapters, each starting with a powerful poem: • The Shoulders We Stand On • Where We Come From • Everyday Struggles • Stand Up, Speak Out • Raising Our Children • Family & Food for the Soul • Taking Care of Me • Sisters, Friends • Loving Black Men • Identity & Roots • Self-Discovery Chicken Soup for the Soul books are 100% made in the USA and each book includes stories from as diverse a group of writers as possible. Chicken Soup for the Soul solicits and publishes stories from the LGBTQ community and from people of all ethnicities, nationalities, and religions.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1611590833
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Now more than ever, the strong, independent, courageous voices of Black women are being heard loud and clear. They share their truth about life, love, family, faith and hope in these 101 personal stories and 12 powerful poems. The world is listening. Black women are speaking, for themselves and their families, and everyone is listening. This unique collection of stories is for readers of all colors, not just the Black community, as these contributors share their dreams, their triumphs and failures, and their lives, which have unique challenges and hardships that are not well understood by others. Readers of color will recognize their own struggles in these pages, and white readers will benefit from an inside view of Black life in America, Canada and beyond. These 101 stories and 12 poems, written by and for Black women, cover it all—from fierce to funny—about hopes and dreams, fears and realities, identity and self-discovery, family, children, even hair. Each one starts with a quote connecting you to a wellspring of wisdom from historical and contemporary Black women. “We are speaking now,” says Breena Clarke, coauthor of this book. “Because the moment is now, in this collection of first-person narratives. This is an opportunity to hear the often silenced voices of Black women, writing for you and because of you. These are stories of universal human experiences but also reflect the specificity of Black women’s lives in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.” Everyone will benefit from this look into the culture, wisdom, and everyday reality of the Black experience, with 11 chapters, each starting with a powerful poem: • The Shoulders We Stand On • Where We Come From • Everyday Struggles • Stand Up, Speak Out • Raising Our Children • Family & Food for the Soul • Taking Care of Me • Sisters, Friends • Loving Black Men • Identity & Roots • Self-Discovery Chicken Soup for the Soul books are 100% made in the USA and each book includes stories from as diverse a group of writers as possible. Chicken Soup for the Soul solicits and publishes stories from the LGBTQ community and from people of all ethnicities, nationalities, and religions.
Crossing the River
Author: Carol Smith
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1647000963
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
A powerful exploration of grief and resilience following the death of the author's son that combines memoir, reportage, and lessons in how to heal Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Helen Macdonald found solace in training a wild goshawk. Cheryl Strayed found strength in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. For Carol Smith, a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist struggling with the sudden death of her seven-year-old son, Christopher, the way to cross the river of sorrow was through work. In Crossing the River, Smith recounts how she faced down her crippling loss through reporting a series of profiles of people coping with their own intense challenges, whether a life-altering accident, injury, or diagnosis. These were stories of survival and transformation, of people facing devastating situations that changed them in unexpected ways. Smith deftly mixes the stories of these individuals and their families with her own account of how they helped her heal. General John Shalikashvili, once the most powerful member of the American military, taught Carol how to face fear with discipline and endurance. Seth, a young boy with a rare and incurable illness, shed light on the totality of her son's experiences, and in turn helps readers see that the value of a life is not measured in days. Crossing the River is a beautiful and profoundly moving book, an unforgettable journey through grief toward hope, and a valuable, illuminating read for anyone coping with loss.
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1647000963
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
A powerful exploration of grief and resilience following the death of the author's son that combines memoir, reportage, and lessons in how to heal Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Helen Macdonald found solace in training a wild goshawk. Cheryl Strayed found strength in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. For Carol Smith, a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist struggling with the sudden death of her seven-year-old son, Christopher, the way to cross the river of sorrow was through work. In Crossing the River, Smith recounts how she faced down her crippling loss through reporting a series of profiles of people coping with their own intense challenges, whether a life-altering accident, injury, or diagnosis. These were stories of survival and transformation, of people facing devastating situations that changed them in unexpected ways. Smith deftly mixes the stories of these individuals and their families with her own account of how they helped her heal. General John Shalikashvili, once the most powerful member of the American military, taught Carol how to face fear with discipline and endurance. Seth, a young boy with a rare and incurable illness, shed light on the totality of her son's experiences, and in turn helps readers see that the value of a life is not measured in days. Crossing the River is a beautiful and profoundly moving book, an unforgettable journey through grief toward hope, and a valuable, illuminating read for anyone coping with loss.
A River Runs through It and Other Stories
Author: Norman MacLean
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022647223X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
The New York Times–bestselling classic set amid the mountains and streams of early twentieth-century Montana, “as beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway” (Chicago Tribune). When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Today, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs Through It has established itself as a classic of the American West filled with beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.” “Maclean’s book—acerbic, laconic, deadpan—rings out of a rich American tradition that includes Mark Twain, Kin Hubbard, Richard Bissell, Jean Shepherd, and Nelson Algren.” —New York Times Book Review Includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award–winning film adaptation
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022647223X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
The New York Times–bestselling classic set amid the mountains and streams of early twentieth-century Montana, “as beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway” (Chicago Tribune). When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Today, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs Through It has established itself as a classic of the American West filled with beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.” “Maclean’s book—acerbic, laconic, deadpan—rings out of a rich American tradition that includes Mark Twain, Kin Hubbard, Richard Bissell, Jean Shepherd, and Nelson Algren.” —New York Times Book Review Includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award–winning film adaptation
Don't Throw Away Your Stick Till You Cross the River
Author: Vincent Beach
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781589850767
Category : Immigrants
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Vincent Beach has crossed many rivers, beginning in 1944 when he left his rural Jamaican home and enlisted in the Royal Air Force. He dreamed of becoming a jazz musician and without any musical background, bought an old clarinet and began to practice. He emigrated to the United States and, with little education and even less money, joined the United States Air Force and completed a 22-year career as a military bandsman. In his autobiography Vincent shares the intimate details of his inspiring life. An ordinary man by his own description he has experienced a lot-from war, to racism, to love found, lost, and rediscovered, to the birth of his children, and the tragic deaths of two of them from Lupus. Vincent's heartwarming story will engender hope and optimism in readers everywhere. Book jacket.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781589850767
Category : Immigrants
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Vincent Beach has crossed many rivers, beginning in 1944 when he left his rural Jamaican home and enlisted in the Royal Air Force. He dreamed of becoming a jazz musician and without any musical background, bought an old clarinet and began to practice. He emigrated to the United States and, with little education and even less money, joined the United States Air Force and completed a 22-year career as a military bandsman. In his autobiography Vincent shares the intimate details of his inspiring life. An ordinary man by his own description he has experienced a lot-from war, to racism, to love found, lost, and rediscovered, to the birth of his children, and the tragic deaths of two of them from Lupus. Vincent's heartwarming story will engender hope and optimism in readers everywhere. Book jacket.
The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams
Author: . Nasdijj
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547904827
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS transports readers to the majestic landscapes and hard Native American lives of the desert Southwest and into the embrace of a way of looking at the world that seems almost like revelation. Born to a storytelling Native mother and a roughneck, song-singing cowboy father, Nasdijj has lived on the jagged-edged margins of American society, yet hardship and isolation have only brought him greater clarity--and a gift for language that is nothing short of breathtaking. Nasdijj tells of his adopted son, Tommy Nothing Fancy, of the young boy's struggle with fetal alcohol syndrome, and of their last fishing trip together. It is a heartbreaking story, written with great power and a diamondlike poetry. But whether Nasdijj is telling us about his son, about the chaotic, alternately harrowing and comical life he led with his own parents, or about the vitality and beauty of Native American culture, his voice is always one of searching honesty, wry humor, and a nearly cosmic compassion. While Nasdijj struggles with his impossible status as someone of two separate cultures, he also remains a contradiction in a larger sense: he cares for those who often shun him, he teaches hope though he often has none for himself, and he comes home to the land he then must leave. THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS is the memoir of a man who has survived a hard life with grace, who has taken the past experience of pain and transformed it into a determination to care for the most vulnerable among us, and who has found an almost unspeakable beauty where others would find only sadness. This is a book that will touch your soul.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547904827
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS transports readers to the majestic landscapes and hard Native American lives of the desert Southwest and into the embrace of a way of looking at the world that seems almost like revelation. Born to a storytelling Native mother and a roughneck, song-singing cowboy father, Nasdijj has lived on the jagged-edged margins of American society, yet hardship and isolation have only brought him greater clarity--and a gift for language that is nothing short of breathtaking. Nasdijj tells of his adopted son, Tommy Nothing Fancy, of the young boy's struggle with fetal alcohol syndrome, and of their last fishing trip together. It is a heartbreaking story, written with great power and a diamondlike poetry. But whether Nasdijj is telling us about his son, about the chaotic, alternately harrowing and comical life he led with his own parents, or about the vitality and beauty of Native American culture, his voice is always one of searching honesty, wry humor, and a nearly cosmic compassion. While Nasdijj struggles with his impossible status as someone of two separate cultures, he also remains a contradiction in a larger sense: he cares for those who often shun him, he teaches hope though he often has none for himself, and he comes home to the land he then must leave. THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS is the memoir of a man who has survived a hard life with grace, who has taken the past experience of pain and transformed it into a determination to care for the most vulnerable among us, and who has found an almost unspeakable beauty where others would find only sadness. This is a book that will touch your soul.