Red Weather

by McAdams, Janet

• ISBN13: 9780816520350
• ISBN10: 0816520356
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr

Summary

Neva Greene is lying when she tells her new housemates that she's come to Coatepeque just for the adventure. The daughter of American Indian activists, Neva hasn't seen or heard from her parents since their disappearance twelve years earlier, when they helped plan an act of resistance that went terribly wrong. After discovering a long-overlooked clue to their disappearance, Neva follows their trail into a tiny Central American country, leaving behind an uncaring husband, an estranged brother, and a life of lukewarm commitments. In the capital city war is brewing. Amid escalating violence and political unrest, Neva finds work teaching English and takes a lover, Tomas. He, like her, is of mixed heritage and Neva begins to question her role in the government's war against Coatepeque's indigenous people. After she asks Tomas for help in tracking down her parents, he disappears and Neva falls apart. After a series of disastrous choices, she resolves to pursue her quest wherever it leads. Returning to the capital, she finds it ravaged by an earthquake and throws herself into the relief effort. Then her brother calls with news about their parents and urges her to come home. But the earthquake has made travel impossible and before she can leave war breaks out. Tomas returns and Neva is forced to come to terms with her past and confront her future. With finely drawn characters, emotional intensity, and a fresh writing style, Janet McAdams draws readers into a vivid and compelling tale of loss and possibility.

Author Biography

Ralph Salisbury has shared his family's tales and experiences in seven previous books of prose and poetry. Now in Rainbows of Stone he returns with a collection of poems that interweaves family tales with personal and tribal history. Conjuring images that define his life -- from the vanishing farming and hunting traditions with which he was raised to his experiences in World War II as a member of a bomber crew -- he has produced a haunting, powerful work that expresses his devotion to the Cherokee religion and its harmony with the forces of Nature.

Table of Contents

Leaving My People
A Declaration, Not of Independence	p. 3
Being Indian	p. 5
Family Task, 4th Year	p. 6
First Kill, 4th Year	p. 7
As Straight As	p. 8
A Stick-Horse-Indian's History	p. 9
Of Pheasant and Blue-Winged Teal	p. 10
Lazarus	p. 11
Passing Rez School the Day before Thankstaking Day, Unoriginal Sin and a Redskin Pilgrim's Retrogression	p. 12
Geometry of a Cherokee History	p. 13
Those Glittering Claws	p. 15
Between Bandoliers	p. 16
Breed Kid's Initiation Rite: 1981	p. 17
Without Thunder	p. 18
Leaving the Land	p. 19
Unloading	p. 21
Death of ___ _____, Chief without a Tribe	p. 22
A Longer	p. 24
Then and Still	p. 25
A 20th Century Cherokee's Farewell to Arms	p. 26
Green Smoke	p. 28
We Are Asked to Understand	p. 29
Ahab over Japan	p. 30
New Years Night, Moss-Hall Tavern, London	p. 31
A Cherokee's Second Christening	p. 33
War Over, Blue Heron Ascending	p. 34
Veterans Hospital, Moving the Dead	p. 35
Veterans Hospital: Terminal Ward	p. 36
Bullet-Holes... Drops of Rain...	p. 37
My Brother's Aerial Photo of the Farm where We Were Born	p. 38
Grandfather Wise Wolf at War	p. 40
A Man Hunt among the Dead
Visiting Poets' Words on Arizona Poetry Center Wall	p. 43
An Indian Kid's Vision of Snow	p. 44
The Sioux, Their Glory	p. 46
After the Treaty	p. 47
Canyon de Chelly	p. 48
"Among the Savages ..."	p. 49
A Poet Knight's Report from the New World	p. 50
For Sir Walter Raleigh	p. 52
A Descendant of "Savage" Nature Worshiper Cherokees Raids Christian Venice	p. 53
Just below the Snow: Visit to Palace, Bavaria	p. 54
A Cherokee Naval History	p. 56
Sacajawea, Bird-Woman, Shows Mrs. America a Native American Diorama	p. 57
Against Envy	p. 58
Scrub Jays at Feeder	p. 59
"Katooah," We Say	p. 60
Sometimes Likely	p. 61
A Historic Denial	p. 62
Vanishing Americans Battle to Regain a Vanishing World
A Rainbow of Stone	p. 65
Hearing the Famous Talk	p. 67
Around the Sun, the Alaskan Oil Spill	p. 68
Oil Spills, 1966, 1989 69
Ocean Enough: Exxon's Alaskan Oil Spill	p. 71
Oil Spill Spreading	p. 72
The Ultimate Mountain	p. 73
Through Nothing	p. 74
The Violet that Killed a Mountain Sheep	p. 75
For a Prairie Chicken, Now Extinct	p. 76
Until and After	p. 77
For Simon Ortiz	p. 78
Continuing Sikwaya's Search	p. 79
For Ed Edmo, Shoshone-Bannock	p. 80
Jim Barnes, Choctaw	p. 81
In Memory of Bill Stafford, Good Indian, Who Fought to Save Crow's Feet's Band and Other Survivors	p. 82
For One of Us, Lost while Climbing	p. 83
Vieques, after Hurricane Hugo	p. 85
A Liberation and a Farewell to Arms	p. 86
To Sing of the Sun	p. 88
Out of Sleep under Stars	p. 90
Skyful of Teeth	p. 91
Yunwiya Initiation Hunt: For Quarry Greater than Bear	p. 92
A Father's Bear Dream	p. 93
Fall Hunt for Winter Meat	p. 94
Rare Plant Viewed after TV Nature Special and Commercial	p. 95
Frost Baby Harp Seal Pelt	p. 96
A Harvest of Rainbows	p. 98
Above Dinosaur National Monument, Utah	p. 99
Death Songs
Six Prayers	p. 103
The Only Medicine Sure	p. 105
Burning the Old Garden Fence	p. 106
To My Father's Mother	p. 108
For Mary Turner Salisbury	p. 109
A Violet in My First for My Mother's Mother	p. 110
To My Mother's Father	p. 112
What Grows	p. 113
For Years and Years	p. 114
Dad's Old Plowing Buddy, Met	p. 116
A Harvesting	p. 117
Cherokee Ghost Story: My Father's	p. 118
As Day Was	p. 119
Noise of Going-to-Work Traffic, London: Accidental Deaths	p. 120
Home To	p. 121
The Color Of	p. 122
This Is My Death Dream	p. 123
By Then	p. 125
A Name on a Tombstone	p. 127
Long and Longer	p. 128
One Past	p. 129
Gentle in Green	p. 130
Thanks You	p. 131
Closer	p. 132
If Anyone Does	p. 133
Death Song, My Own	p. 134
Acknowledgments	p. 135
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