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  • Companion to James Welch's "The Heartsong of Charging Elk." ed. by Arnold Krupat
  • Lydia R. Cooper
Arnold Krupat, ed. Companion to James Welch's "The Heartsong of Charging Elk." Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. 300 pp. Cloth, $60.00.

Arnold Krupat's Companion to James Welch's "The Heartsong of Charging Elk" gathers new and existing articles on Welch's 2000 novel, as well as interviews and a chapter from an early draft previously only available to researchers in the James Welch Papers, held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Krupat's introduction provides a biographical portrait of Welch and a brief synopsis of the novel's inception and process drawn mainly from interviews with Welch and with his widow, Lois, and from the research notes and drafts held at the Beinecke. Following the introduction, the first section of the Companion turns to excerpts of interviews with Welch about the novel and a more recent interview with Lois Welch. The second section of the book provides republished versions of three significant scholarly articles on the novel by James Donahue, Ulla Haselstein, and Hans Bak. The third and final section provides six original essays, two by Krupat and others by Amanda Cobb-Greetham, Kathryn Shanley, Craig Womack, and James Ruppert.

In the book's first section, the clear highlights are the interview with Lois Welch and the excerpted chapter from "Marseilles Grace," an early full draft of The Heartsong of Charging Elk. The interview excerpts primarily focus on sections in which Welch describes his early idea for the novel and his writing and research process. Krupat conveys these anecdotes in chronological order in the introduction. The inclusion of these excerpts may seem repetitive, although researchers may appreciate having the interviews at hand for their own perusal. By contrast, Lois Welch's description of her husband's research process is new and provides a warm portrait, even if it is polished and reveals little previously unknown information. At one point, she describes the man who provided the germ idea for the novel when he approached Welch after a [End Page 182] reading and claimed to have an ancestor who had arrived in France with the Wild West Show: she calls him the "fringed Pierre Falaise" (45). Such brief, vivacious descriptions, particularly of shops and streets that are featured in the novel, are wonderfully charming.

Krupat's inclusion of a chapter from Welch's early draft is particularly helpful for students, ardent readers, and beginning scholars. Krupat's note before the excerpt contextualizes this draft chapter and provides details about the draft's plot and its construction timeline. This excerpt of the early draft (titled "Marseilles Grace") is the only published form of that draft, which is available in its entirety in the James Welch Papers; for scholars, this excerpt and summary might provide a useful resource that would not replace a visit to New Haven but certainly might serve as a first contact with the novel's backstory.

The Companion's second section not only provides an updated version of Donahue's article on the novel, originally published in Studies in American Indian Literature in 2006, but also combines previously published articles by Haselstein (originally published in 2010) and Bak (2009). Providing European scholarly perspectives (German and Dutch, respectively) alongside a seminal US scholar's reading of the novel provides useful insight for ongoing discussions of transnationalism, nationalism, and issues of sovereignty and identity.

The real strength of the book, however, lies in the final section. Several of the original essays in the last half of the Companion not only provide fresh takes on the book but also directly address some of the thorniest issues in its reception and legacy. Perhaps most compelling is Womack's "The Fatal Blow Job." In that short reader response–style essay, Womack confronts the problematic (literal) demonization of the gay Armand Breteuil, complicates facile readings of Charging Elk's multifaceted reactions to that fatal blow job, and offers a sobering reflection on the impact of the novel's silence regarding any other gay characters. Responding to Sherman Alexie's remark that the novel may have saved his...

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