Media notices about HBO’s
dramatization of Dee Brown’s "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" that aired last week triggered memories of how that
book has become a classic. Along with Tolkien books, "Everything
You Always Wanted to Know about Sex…" and former Los Angeles cop Joseph Wambaugh’s first novel "The
New Centurions, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" (Henry Holt $16) set sales records the first year
The Book Loft was in business and helped initiate us into the bookselling
fraternity.
Published in 1970, "Bury
my Heart" had a popularity
that became both a cause and effect of a spurt of interest in Native Americans
(a designation deemed more accurate and acceptable than “Indians”, yet the book
itself is subtitled “An Indian History of the American West”). It has
sold steadily through the years and is widely used in schools.
The Book Loft tries to
keep one or two copies in stock at all times. Sometimes that is not
enough. Solvang continually hosts busloads of visitors, many of them from
abroad. One popular route is Los Angeles-Grand Canyon-Monument Valley-Los
Vegas-Yosemite-San Francisco-Carmel-Hearst Castle-Solvang-Santa Barbara-Los
Angeles.
Traveling through Indian
country, tour leaders sometimes offer reading suggestions, but the tourists may
not find themselves in a bookstore until they land in Solvang. Then we
might get half a dozen requests for a copy of "Bury My Heart at Wounded
Knee" and end up disappointing
a few foreign visitors.
I missed the television
version, but as a bookseller I take comfort from the comments in Los Angels
newspapers. A syndicated columnist for the Daily News wrote,” "Bury my
Heart at Wounded Knee" was a
sensation when published in 1970, and HBO’s very loose adaptation is quite
likely to transform it into one again.” An LA Times sub-head summed up
the HBO offering as, “…more dutiful than inspired, but there’s always the book.”
Let me also mention "Flight" by Sherman Alexie (Black Cat $13), a paperback
original just published in what I would call a “deluxe format.” Alexie
wrote the award-winning screenplay for “Smoke Signals,” based on his story
collection "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." His new novel is the tragic and hilarious portrait
of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a charged
search for his true identity.
The founding of
Jamestown, America’s first permanent English colony, in Virginia in 1607, 400
years ago, is being commemorated throughout 2007 with major events, exhibits
and publications. It has been said that one woman saved that colony from
death, famine and utter confusion—Pocahontas.
Fascinated by her new
neighbors, Pocahontas seemed to be the key to the shaky peace between English
colonists and the Powhatan Indians. According to Captain John Smith, she
even saved his life…twice. Pocahontas is the subject of a charming new
picture book for reader’s ages 6 to 10. Written by acclaimed biographer
Kathleen Krull and illustrated by David Diaz, "Pocahontas:
Princess of the New World" is
published by Walker ($16.95).