Gansworth's third novel (after Smoke Dancing
) begins rather ponderously with a partial transcript of a keynote address at a conference to protect and reclaim Indian images, but the primary narrator is soon revealed to be garrulous Shirley Mounter, whose daughter, Annie Boans, an art historian, is involved in the conference. Shirley and Annie are members of the Tuscarora tribe, which once dominated the land around Niagara Falls, and the tribulations of the tribe are the backdrop for Shirley's rambling storytelling, which mostly deals with her problematic relationship with her lazy husband, Harris. Annie's equally troubled marriage enters the picture in the second half of the book, but the novel's climax comes in a scene in which a group of reservation bad boys drive a car into the house of Annie's mother-in-law, Martha, who loses most of her possessions in the subsequent fire. Gansworth's decision to break up Shirley's narration with first-person passages from the perspective of other characters presents definite strengths and weaknesses; stylistically, it creates a folksy, appealing tone that makes the novel more accessible, but the choppy, uneven storytelling leads to a lack of focus. The play of voices can be engaging, but the narrative lacks the coherence to be truly effective. (Mar.)
