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Dreaming of both escape and belonging on the Flathead Indian Reservation in the 1940s, Louise White Elk, a determined and beautiful young woman, comes of age as she is pursued by three dangerous men who will do anything to possess her--police officer Charlie Kicking Woman, the charismatic Baptiste, and Harvey Stoner, who owns nearly everything around him.
On the Flathead Indian Reservation, summer is ending, and Louise White Elk is determined to forge her own path. Raised by her Grandmother Magpie after the death of her mother, Louise and her younger sister have grown up into the harsh social and physical landscape of western Montana in the 1940s, where Native people endure boarding schools and life far from home. As she approaches adulthood, Louise hopes to create an independent life for herself and an improved future for her family—but three persistent men have other plans.
Since childhood, Louise has been pursued by Baptiste Yellow Knife, feared not only for his rough-and-tumble ways, but also for the preternatural gifts of his bloodline. Baptiste's rival is his cousin, Charlie Kicking Woman: a man caught between worlds, torn between his duty as a tribal officer and his fascination with Louise. And then there is Harvey Stoner. The white real estate mogul can offer Louise her wildest dreams of freedom, but at what cost?
As tensions mount, Louise finds herself trying to outrun the bitter clutches of winter and the will of powerful men, facing choices that will alter her life—and end another's—forever.
"Superb ... A love story of uncommon depth and power, a love story that is as painful as it is transcendent, a love story in which the lovers ... are unwilling to diminish themselves in the act of joining together but are equally unable to turn away." —Booklist
"Poignant ... Earling offers first-rate characterizations, and she does an equally fine job portraying tribal life in the Flatland Nation." —Publishers Weekly
"Perma Red is a terrific novel, tough-minded, gritty, and powerful ... rich with stories of such elemental truth that they have the resonance of sacred songs, the lingering effect of legends. I haven't read a novel that affected me this much since I first encountered Leslie Silko's Ceremony." —James Crumley, author of The Last Good Kiss
"With Perma Red, Debra Magpie Earling finally steps forward after two decades and delivers a book as permanently beautiful as the Montana landscape itself. I find it hard, if not impossible, to shake Earling's book from my mind. To paraphrase another Big Sky writer, Norman Maclean, I am haunted by words." —David Abrams, author of Fobbit
This information about Perma Red was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Debra Magpie Earling is the author of Perma Red and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. An earlier version of the latter, written in verse, was produced as an artist book during the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. She has received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She retired from the University of Montana where she was named professor emeritus in 2021. She is Bitterroot Salish.
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