Aurora Crossing: A Novel of the Nez Perces - Tapa dura

An author of Native American fiction and nonfiction both, Schlesier here deftly melds the two in an engrossing saga of the Nez Perces' attempt to elude U.S. forces and escape to freedom in Canada... By means of his fictional characters he incorporates precise details of traditional ceremonies, the constant search for food, and the intricacies of setting up and taking down hundreds of ledges on this long and arduous journey, and brings this moment in Nez Perce history vividly to life. --Deborah Donovan, Booklist, Oct. 15, 2008 ""A satisfying, ethnographically detailed coming-of-age novel, set in the tumult of a war that threatens to become genocide... Worthy of a place alongside the work of Vardis Fisher, James Welch, Michael Blake and other novelistic interpreters of northwestern Indian history."" --Kirkus Reviews, Sept. 15, 2008 ""Schlesier does a fine job of reminding readers of the tragically high price paid by American Indians in the settling of the West."" --Sybil Downing, Denver Post, Nov. 30, 2008 ""In eloquent prose, the author brings this melancholy real-life odyssey to life with his half-blood John Setan a participant in all its agony and glory."" --Dale L. Walker, www.guidelive.com, Dec. 7, 2008 ""In eloquent prose, the author brings this melancholy real-life odyssey to life with his half-blood John Seton a participant in all its agony and glory... Seton, a memorable creating, heroic without being bigger than life, if a figure of unaffected strength and resolution... These experiences are the underpinnings of this brilliant novel."" --Dale L. Walker, Dallas Morning News, Dec. 07, 2008 ""[Schlesier] does a very good job of describing the life and travails of the Nez Perce as they were in flight."" --Jeff Westerhoff, Historical Novels Review, Nov. 2008, Issue 46 ""Offering a native American perspective of one of America's darkest acts against its own people, ""Aurora Crossing"" is very much highly recommended reading for anyone intrigued by native American cultures."" --Internet Bookwatch, Jan. 2009

Praise for Karl H. Schlesier's ""Trail of the Red Butterfly"": 'He writes with the eyes of an eagle' - N. Scott Momaday. 'An original jewel of Western fiction' - ""Midwest Book Review"". 'A delight to read' - Benet Exton, O.S.B. In ancient creation tales of Indian tribes of the American Northwest, nasawaylu, ""Old Man Coyote"", was the spirit who finished the world started by the Supreme Being. A master of animals, holy person, and trickster, nasawaylu sometimes bestowed special gifts on an Indian youth seeking a guardian spirit. But in the 1870s young Nez Perce John Seton struggles to determine whether Coyotes message is a gift or a trick. Reared first in an Anglo township in north central Idaho, then on the reservation, and finally on the Salmon River with the free-roving Lamtama band, Seton has always followed the fortunes of his mother. After her death he chooses to stay in the camp of old Hemene, a respected Lamtama leader. Still a novice in all three of the sharply contrasting worlds he has known, Seton is drawn irresistibly and irreversibly into the Nez Perce War of 1877. His quest to find a place in the clash of cultures is a magical saga, a search for meaning in the fabled Tricksters message. The events to which Seton is an eyewitness such as the Nez Perce march of 1877 are recorded in history, masterfully woven here by Karl Schlesier into a fabric of compelling fiction and human drama.