Sun Dancer

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Modern-day Sioux Indians take back their ancient land in London's sturdy first novel. Narrator Joey Moves Camp has doubts about the old ways, although he speaks Lakota and pierced his flesh and did the sun dance before leaving for his tour in Vietnam. When Joey's mother dies, Joey watches his half-brother, Clement Blue Chest, begin a spiritual transformation from bitter, self-pitying drunk to tribal holy man. Joey clarifies his own beliefs as well, as he helps Clem lead their neighbors to reclaim the "sacred" Black Hills by force, including an occupation of Mt. Rushmore, and to reveal their history of betrayal and injustice to the American people. London writes with authority and vividness of various Lakota Sioux ceremonies and rituals. He's not shy about taking sides, but if his portrayals of the novel's villains, FBI agents, meddling missionaries and racist cattlemen tend toward caricature, his look at the assortment of characters, factions and philosophies on the local reservation is convincingly nuanced. Despite occasional preachiness, this is an intelligent, sure-handed debut, told with passion and skill.

Library Journal

Reflecting his mixed heritage, Joey Moves Camp straddles the gap between the white and Lakota Sioux societies. Disillusioned by his 1972 tour of duty in Vietnam and the treatment of Native Americans throughout U.S. history, he joins others in an attempt to regain tribal lands illegally held by the U.S. government - a ploy that is reminiscent of a true incident at Mt. Rushmore in 1971. Here, the modern-day warriors occupy the monument in a short-sighted attempt to open the public's eyes to the plight of Native Americans, paradoxically hoping to gain the sympathy of white Americans, who are with few exceptions overzealously villified. Otherwise, London (creative writing, Univ. of Iowa) does a fine job of incorporating his research of the old Sioux spiritual traditions without bogging down the plot of this first novel. Recommended for large public libraries.- Robert Jordan, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City

Kirkus Reviews

First novel about remnants of the American Indian Movement (AIM) coming together to capture Mount Rushmore. In 1971, members of AIM actually did this, and London blurs real events and timelines rather nicely here, attempting a larger and more contemporary story embracing a portrait of family life on the Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation; warrior visions attained through sun dancing (piercing one's chest with pegs or spikes that are attached to ropes, breaking free when the vision one encounters is too powerful and painful to endure); liberation theology as represented by a renegade priest; Lakota mythology; and the short, sad history of the Laramie Treaty of 1868, in which Congress recognized the Sioux Nation's claim to the Black Hills as inviolable, and then almost immediately violated the agreement. London's story focuses on two brothers: Joey Moves Camp, a Vietnam vet and college graduate who returns to the reservation because he hears voices (not ancestral voices but the kind that suggest schizophrenia); and Clem Blue Chest, a good-natured family man of small accomplishment, fighting a great dependence on alcohol. While Joey dallies in an affair with a white woman and fights off insanity, Clem, by sun dancing, experiences a true vision, one that he believes could once again make the Sioux a great people. In the novel's finest moments, as the Sioux stand off the FBI, Clem again sun dances on the face of Lincoln at Mount Rushmore. The Sioux know they can't hold the mountain for long but hope to reach the national media; the FBI blocks even this, however, and Clem's insurrection ends as badly as AIM's historical one.

London reads like a blend of Thomas McGuane and Jim Harrison—with touches from the film Dances With Wolves thrown in, too, since his white people are all bad and his Indians are all good. Even so, his storyline flies straight as an arrow.