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168 WesternAmerican Literature friend ofBernadette, Starr, who “used to be a big time clothes model... in New York City,” is married to Rounder Stubbs, a boozy country singer who lives in comparative splendor in Dulce, New Mexico. Although Starr arguably provides a white person’s perspective in the novel, her character never rings as true, never achieves the complexity, and never piques the imagination as does Gracie’s. This minor criticism notwithstanding, The Death ofBernadette Lefthand is a fine, engaging novel. Querry’s mystery is defdy written, entertaining, packed with information, and deserves to be read. ROBERT HEADLEY Southern State Community College, Ohio Iona Moon. By Melanie Rae Thon. (New York: Poseidon Press, 1993. 315 pages, $ 21.00.) Iona Moon, gutsy protagonist of Melanie Rae Thon’s new novel, resembles no one as much as an updated, Idaho Huckleberry Finn. Moon, despite the limitations of growing up in a family of provincial potato farmers, celebrates both her own life and the lives of two significant male others. She is sensitive, courageous, and independent, nursing her mother dying ofcancer and nurtur­ ing her few cherished friends, making subtle moral choices as she matures. Thon’s prose veers between lyricism and a stark naturalist portrayal of a world of potato fields and petty small town lives. In a fictional world of sexual and spiritual abuse, the narrative avoids the postmodernist nihilist trap, insist­ ing on the possibility that events might signify meaning. As Moon whispers in a dream sequence, “It is the wounded heart that makes us human in the end, my love. ” Only the ending jars, when the narrative focus shifts abruptly to another character. Narrative momentum prepares the reader for a conclusion focused on Moon herself. In fact, the final phrases sound melodramatic: “you either kill yourself, or you fly.”But on the whole, this is a novel to re-read and treasure for its complex representations and poetic language. SUSAN ELIZABETH GUNTER Westminster College ofSalt Lake City The Owl in the Mask oftheDreamer: CollectedPoems. ByJohn Haines. (Saint Paul, Minnesota: GraywolfPress, 1993. 251 pages, $25.00.) The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer not only resists quick study, but often resists being treated as a book. Reading it straight through is like jogging through the Louvre. In thisway,John Haines’swork stands apart from the year’s ...

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