There There

I'm two for two in books being a lot more intense than I was expecting. Not that I was expecting this book, a series of interconnected short stories about several Native Americans attending a Powwow in Oakland, to be lighthearted or anything like that. The subject material meant that it was definitely going to be heavy. But it was so much heavier than I was expecting.

Almost every character is dealing with alcoholism, or at least with an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Some of them are alcoholics themselves, either resigned to an early death by liver failure or attempting to get sober for the umpteenth time. Others are dealing with family members who are absent or violent due to alcohol, and they're mostly trying and failing to break those patterns in their own lives. There's a wide array of characters, but this constant struggle is a theme in all of their lives.

It also quickly becomes apparent that the event at the powwow that will tie everyone together is an armed robbery, which is the opposite of the kind of story I was hoping to read. The ending itself is pretty open-ended, but the rest of the book is so pessimistic and cynical that it's hard to believe there's a happy ending for anyone involved. I was left feeling ambivalent and wanting something more or different from these characters and this story. But maybe that was the point.