“Why was Red Shoes, the most formidable Choctaw warrior of
the eighteenth century, assassinated by his own people? Why does his death haunt Auda Billy, an
Oklahoma Choctaw woman, accused in 1991 of murdering Choctaw Chief Redford
McAlester? Moving between the
known details of Red Shoes’ life and the riddle of McAlester’s death, this
novel traces the history of the Billy women whose destiny it is to solve both
murders—with the help of a powerful spirit known as the Shell Shaker.”
As you may have guessed, this was another book that was not
of my own choosing. It was another
novel for my Multicultural American Novel course. My instructor has Native American blood, so this course has
a couple of Native American books assigned. Shell Shaker was obviously one of them.
I must say that the first chapter did a pretty good job of
drawing me in. I love historical
fiction, so the portions told from Shakbatina’s and the other eighteenth
century Native Americans’ points of view were interesting to me. I was expecting to feel the same way
about the “modern” portions of the story, but, unfortunately, I did not. As much as I appreciated the unique way
that the story was told—flipping back and forth between the past lives of the
characters and the present—I did not feel any
sort of attachment to them. They
felt very flat. I think this is
perhaps because the author spent so much time working on making connections
between the characters’ past and present selves that there was not enough time
to really round them out. On top
of it, the story had so many different characters and was told from several
different points of view. This
hindered my creating an attachment to any one or two characters. I felt very little sympathy for anyone
other than the first character I was introduced to: Shakbatina.
Even Auda, who has terrible things done to her and does suffer, seemed
very “fake”. (I’m sure there’s a better word to be used here, but I cannot find
it. I simply mean that she wasn’t
fleshed out enough for me.) Rather
than sympathy, I felt pity. I know
it is easy for me to say that it’s stupid because I have never been in such a
situation, but I have a hard time connecting with female characters who allow
themselves to be led on, tricked, abused, and they choose to remain in that
situation. Overall, I would have
to say that I connected the most with Isaac Billy. His kind heart and quick wit were very endearing.
I wish I had enjoyed this book more. It was a fairly quick read, but I wish I’d
relished the process. I am not a
fan of “magic” books and this was one of those. I’m not against the supernatural, but this one was a little
bit too over the top for me. I’m
sure that there are those out there who love this book—more power to them. This one was just not for me—not terrible! Just not for me.
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