Eric Gansworth

Eric Gansworth, an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, was born and raised at the Tuscarora Indian Nation in Western New York. He received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English fr...

Smoke Dancing

Eric Gansworth

An Excerpt from Smoke Dancing:

"A bird hits the living room window head on, telling me, as they do in suicide, that someone close to me has just passed on. Not a minute earlier, I slurped down my last cup of morning coffee, and stuffed the vacuum cleaner back into its closet. The dull sound of death, glass moaning just a little, travels toward me across the carpet, freshly blank and free of prints, a blackboard in the summer. The room freezes around me for a moment in the greasy feather-oil stain - the bird's last second on earth, slapped in mid-flight across the window. I cut a path of small, quick footprints across the living room and fly out the door...." ************************************************

The power struggle between traditionalists and progressives on a modern-day reservation is at the center of Eric Gansworth’s latest work of fiction. Through the characters and their unique “voices,” he deftly develops the multiple viewpoints and arguments that currently exist on many reservations. These voices include a traditional chief and a modern-day group of young adults who, as neglected children, banded together in a traditional dance group. The narrative thread that connects these characters uses the metaphor of traditional dance and its relationship to the integrity of Iroquois culture.

A number of the dance group have come to work in the growing empire formed by one of their members—selling tax-free cigarettes and gasoline on reservation land. This new economic base alters the balance of power on the reservation. At the center of the conflict is Fiction Tunny, a dancer and developing love interest of a man in the smoke business. She is also the illegitimate daughter of the chief, who refuses to acknowledge her; to admit she exists would be to admit he is not fit for his role of chief. Fiction’s resentment of her father and the sometimes archaic nature of his life and government are juxtaposed with the predatory nature of the entrepreneur who begins pursuing her sexually at all costs. Fiction seeks a balance, a path that will ground her identity in tradition while following her ever-changing culture into the future.

PRAISE FOR SMOKE DANCING:

"Onondaga author and artist Eric Gansworth has done it again. He has written a magical story, a good read filled with realism, humor, and insight. Smoke Dancing invites you into an Indian world complete with colorful characters and fascinating stories—stories within stories. From the first page, you will be hooked...." —Clifford E. Trafzer, author of Exterminate Them!

"Smoke Dancing is one of those books that you’d like to take time with,... Like many of the best novels by the new generation of Indian authors, it uses multiple perspectives...I cannot think of another novel I’ve read in the last few years that has been more true to contemporary Indian life, richer and more satisfying. If you don't read this book, you are really missing something special." —Joseph Bruchac, author of i>Children of the Longhouse

"Each story shifts with each telling and each telling shifts the one telling it. This book is a rising smoke dance, turning, braking, and turning again." —Diane Glancy, author