Gardens in the Dunes by Leslie Marmon Silko

[iGuest 3]

Booklist/Feb. 1, 1999
"Dreams bring comfort and guidance to the independent characters in Silko's new novel, and there is something altogether dreamlike about this nineteenth-century saga, a work even more complex, dramatic, and significant than her renowned Almanac of the Dead (1991). Plants and animals and our intimate connections to them are at the center of this tale of two sisters, the last remaining members of the ancient Sand Lizard tribe. Sister Salt, so called for her light skin, and her younger sister, Indigo, learn all about the hidden, life-sustaining plants of the desert from Grandma Fleet, who teaches them how to live happily with a minimum of material goods and a wealth of knowledge. Such self-sufficiency is essential if they are to stay free from the misery of reservation life, but even so their liberty is put at risk when they travel to the mean little town of Needles, Arizona, where hundreds of Indians gather to dance in anticipation of the arrival of the Messiah. In the chaotic aftermath of the miraculous visitation, the girls lose their mother and grandmother and then are cruelly separated by the authorities. Indigo promptly runs away and is taken in by an unusual white couple."
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