The engaging protagonist of Frances Washburn’s novel, The Red Bird All-Indian Traveling Band, Sissy
Roberts, a self-aware and sassy young Lakota waitress, lead guitarist, and
singer for the eponymous band, is beautiful and smart. Sissy is also gifted (or cursed) to have
people confide all their secrets to her, whether they want to or not and
whether she wants to hear them or not. Sissy graduated from high school four
years earlier and wants to find a way to leave the reservation to go to college
and avoid the common fate of her pregnant and unmarried friend, Speedy, who
lives with Sissy and her family.
Part tightly paced mystery, part humorous, affectionate community
chronicle, Washburn’s third novel takes place on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud
Reservations in South Dakota and begins on Fourth of July 1969 when a hail of
beer bottles chases Sissy and the guys in the band out of the Longhorn Bar in
Scenic where they are scheduled to play. That same night, Buffalo Ames is
murdered outside the Longhorn, drawing Tom Holm, an FBI agent, toward Sissy
with her talent for hearing secrets as his unwilling entrée into the close-knit
and suspicious reservation community. The
book ends four months later after much romantic and other intrigue and after many
of Sissy’s friends and loved ones have become suspects in the murder at one
time or another before she solves the crime.
Rich in particulars of reservation life and unforgettable
characters, Washburn creates a believable, well-drawn world in which she sets
her emotionally complex story of the coming of age of a young woman with the
gift of being a receptive listener who pays real attention to what people tell
her and the truths behind what they say and the story of a downtrodden, complicated community
in a pivotal time, forming and reforming itself. Washburn’s pared-down style is
ironic and taut and, even when venturing into tragedy or love, never touches on
sentimentality. This richly textured novel of a strong young woman’s and her
community’s development and self-determination is a fine literary work with interlocked
stories and telling details that bring Sissy and her world to life on the page.
As always, I suggest that you buy the book from the
university publisher and support the publishers who bring you diversity in
literature. Without university and small press publishers, we would have only
the few most famous writers of color, and even they were usually initially
published by the university and small press community.
Bio
Frances Washburn was born on Pine Ridge Reservation in South
Dakota and grew up there. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of New
Mexico and was a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska before being
hired at the University of Arizona where she is an Associate Professor in the
American Indian Studies Program and the Department of English. She is the
mother of two children, Lee and Stella.
Washburn is the author of the novels, Elsie's
Business and The Sacred White Turkey,
in addition to The Red Bird All-Indian
Traveling Band. She has also published a biography of Louise Erdrich, Tracks on a Page: Louise Erdrich, Her Life
and Works, as well as scholarly and academic articles and essays.
