Geronimo (review)

It is 1886, and a group of Chiricahua Apaches are being taken as prisoners on a long train ride to Florida. To endure the suffering and tedium, Geronimo's grandson tells himself stories about his famous grandfather from memory and Chiricahua folklore. Geronimo's history thus emerges in a parallel, sometimes focal, narrative alongside the tale of his unnamed grandson's imprisonment. Geronimo leads many battles against both Mexico and the United States and negotiates several surrenders, the final one contingent upon the Apaches being treated as prisoners of war, eventually allowed to reunite with their families and to return home after imprisonment—a promise, it becomes quickly apparent, that the White Eyes will not honor. Geronimo through his grandson's eyes is simultaneously a heroic figure of enormous power and quite human—he has supernatural abilities that thwart death in battle but, though he had many wives and children throughout his life, never stopped mourning his first family killed by Mexican soldiers. The thematic rather than chronological arrangement of Geronimo's grandson's memories and stories is sometimes confusing, an effect made stronger by the staggering number of characters/historical figures that appear throughout. Nevertheless, patient readers will reap the reward of a powerful story of resistance, not just in the form of battles, but in jokes, stories, and myths. Those familiar with Geronimo will find much new material in this telling, while those unfamiliar with his story will find in Bruchac's rendering a thorough, nuanced, and moving exploration of the man and his inspirational power for an entire people. An afterword about Geronimo's death and the eventual fate of the Apaches, as well as a chronology of events and a bibliography, is appended.