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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... Stillwater Public Library | 921 NORTHRUP | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
An account of contemporary Native American life from poet, journalist and storyteller, Jim Northrup.
Author Notes
Jim Northrup was born on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Sawyer, Minnesota on April 28, 1943. At the age of 6, he was ripped from his family and sent to a federal boarding school where speaking in Ojibwe was forbidden and the goal was for the children to become white. At the age of 18, he joined the Marine Corps which included a stint in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis and an eight-month tour in Vietnam during the war. Before moving back to the reservation, he worked as a policeman and sheriff.
He was an Ojibwe storyteller. His first published work was an in anthology of Ojibwe writings entitled Touchwood. His other books included Walking the Rez Road, Rez Road Follies, Anishinaabe Syndicated: A View from the Rez, Dirty Copper, and The Rez Salute: The Real Healer Dealer. He also wrote plays, poems, and films. In 2000, he appeared in a one-man show entitled Rez Road 2000 at the Great American History Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. He died from complications of kidney cancer on August 1, 2016 at the age of 73.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Life on an Indian reservation (the "Rez") has rarely been discussed with such wit as by this member of the Anishinaabe tribe of Fond de Lac, Minn. Northrup, a columnist for several Indian newspapers and author of Walking the Rez Road, was born during WWII, and shortly thereafter was taken from his parents and sent to a Federal boarding school where Native Americans were taught to read and write English and to learn the ways of "the immigrant community," as he calls the white world. Northrup's description of boarding school is at once painful and funny, encapsulated by his imaginary interrogation: Q: "Who invented the Bureau of Indian Affairs?" A: "Someone who was really mad at us." But the book is not a litany of injustice or grief; Northrup pokes hilarious fun at Anglo and tourist stereotypes of Native Americansalthough the aftertaste is bitterand he succeeds in entertaining while instructing us about modern and ancient Indian cultures. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Up on the rez--that would be Fond du Lac Reservation, near Cloquet, near Duluth, Minnesota--Northrup is busy making up riddles ("What's the difference between praying in church and praying in a casino? In the casino, you mean it") and asking questions ("Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Yah, but it's getting harder to find Pilgrims") about contemporary Indian life. He is also busy writing essays about the riddle of sustaining a positive Indian identity (in his case, Ojibwa-Anishinaabe) in a racist society. He writes with superlative humor that never disguises but rather reveals the underlying pain of which he speaks. Northrup takes on the whole gamut of problems affecting his nation, from mock shamans to reservation politics, from youthful suicide to insulting sports nicknames. He also hails the tightness of family bonds, the pleasures of ricing and fishing, and the expressive beauties of the Ojibwa language. Cutting, clear, often poetic, Northrup's words grab your attention and don't let it go. --Patricia Monaghan
