Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter

In these seven loosely linked autobiographical essays, novelist Hale ( The Jailing of Cecilia Capture ) reflects on her family, her personal struggles and her Native American heritage. After two slight pieces, she poignantly and bitterly recalls her childhood, ``my mother and myself on the run'' in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, fleeing Hale's drunken father. Her mother, whose own education was cut short, was ``an absolute master of verbal abuse,'' and Hale still grapples with the legacy of that troubled relationship. The author recalls her own difficulties with marriage and poverty, then describes how, seeking a college scholarship, she reconnected with her family's background on the Coeur d'Alene reservation. An essay on her white great-great-grandfather, John McLoughlin, and a visit to her father's grave also prompt musings on her Indian identity. But Hale's fragmentary style vitiates her message, and she does not discuss what might be the most interesting aspect of her life: her place in ``an intertribal urban Indian community.'' Author tour. (June)