My sister got me a couple of Native American novels for Xmas. This one, by Tommy Orange, was a Pulitzer finalist and one of New York Times' best books of the year for 2018.
It's about a dozen Indians who are preparing to attend a powwow at the Oakland Coliseum. Their lives intertwine, like the threads of a braid, and you see each of them from the viewpoints of the others.
It could have been an interesting structure, like Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet." Unfortunately each of the Native men and women (and the characters surrounding them) are drawn to have massive personal problems, like alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, et cetera. It plays into all the stereotypes of Native culture, and there's hardly a sympathetic character in the book.
Not a very good advertisement for the tribes.
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