Overview
The Year the Sun Died witnesses heartland America at a moral crossroad. The story asks reconciliation critical to our survival as diversely allied peoples. The plot turns on an interracial rape in the city jail and the Lakota suicides that follow. The narrative tracks Indian and non-Indian lives through shifting voices-blue-collar, redneck, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, and Christian evangelist-and their views on Native American courage, honor, and despair. Hometown Lakotas from Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations still live in quiet poverty south of the tracks. Their story unfolds as reticent dignity and mixed-blood reckoning through the Buckskin Curtain. The Year the Sun Died documents the lives of Indian and migrant fusions-the new mixtures and old conflicts of what it means to be Native and American in the heart of this good country.
Synopsis
The Year the Sun Died witnesses heartland America at a moral crossroad. The story asks reconciliation critical to our survival as diversely allied peoples. The plot turns on an interracial rape in the city jail and the Lakota suicides that follow. The narrative tracks Indian and non-Indian lives through shifting voices-blue-collar, redneck, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, and Christian evangelist-and their views on Native American courage, honor, and despair. Hometown Lakotas from Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations still live in quiet poverty south of the tracks. Their story unfolds as reticent dignity and mixed-blood reckoning through the Buckskin Curtain. The Year the Sun Died documents the lives of Indian and migrant fusions-the new mixtures and old conflicts of what it means to be Native and American in the heart of this good country.