Dance Me Outside: More Tales From The Ermineskin Reserve by W. P. Kinsella (review)

168 Western American Literature Dance Me Outside: More Tales From The Ermineskin Reserve. By W. P. Kinsella. (Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher, 1986. 158 pages, $14.95 hard­ cover.) For those who have spent much time living and working among Native American people on the reservations of the U.S. or the reserves of Canada, this is a book that will ring like a clear bell through the very heart of that experience. In this fulgent and perceptive collection of seventeen stories, there is a coyote-wise irony, a wry sadness, a deep and enduring spirit of existential humor and droll sagacity in the face of crushing prejudice and poverty. Through the eyes and labored English of Silas Ermineskin, we view a panoply of characters and situations poignantly evocative of the dirt roads, tarpaper shacks, junked cars and desolate, beautiful landscapes of so many Indian reservations. We meet such people as Silas’ best girl, Sadie One Wound, whose very name seems to filter throughout the book like sweetgrass smoke as a metaphor for the suffering of her people. His older sister Illiana, educated and working in Calgary as an executive secretary; Eathen Firstrider, the rawboned down-at-the-heels rodeo cowboy she left behind. But if there are stereotypes in these tales, they are the refined and diamond-hard amalgam of Kinsella’s keenly observant eye, realities to be found driving the back roads in old clunkers from Hobbema to Red Deer, wandering the sidewalks of Alberta’sbig cities and small towns, standing behind mirror-lensed sunglasses at powwows and Sundances, the blood and earth of a culture overrun. To Kinsella’s greater credit is his breadth in dealing as well with the more prosaic and hidden stories of abused housewives, poor farmers and working men: Annie Bottle, with “eight kids and the meanest drunk husband on the reserve” ; Joe Buffalo, whose daughter commits suicide after being raped; Tom Pony, who dies to save the life of a mine foreman who tried to fire him. Kinsella demonstrates an ability to draw us into an apparently ordi­ nary situation and bring it to an unexpected and absolutely riveting conclu­ sion. These are deep waters indeed, and it is this range of human drama which keeps this book from becoming just another Stay Away Joe and elevates it to a level combining elements of Steinbeck and Faulkner, N. Scott Momaday and James Welch. Among the factors which provide great energy and power in Kinsella’s work are his beautiful handling of the broken Cree-English which is the narra­ tive music of the book, lending an authenticity, an elegant directness and simplicity to the imagery. Furthermore, Kinsella enjoys a poetic lyricism of commanding persuasion, insight, and craft. In his work we have a strong and eloquent voice singing in the silent prairies, speaking from behind the black hats and sunglasses, through the far seeing eyes in dark, impassive faces, a sound that is, in his own words, “That blue-sky-colored lark song . . . the voice of a summer bird on a frosty morning,” carrying an impact “like a gunshot, only beautiful.” ZAC REISNER Logan, Utah ...