Messenger bird / Dan McCall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCall, Dan.

Language:

English

Genre:

Fiction.

Physical Description:

208 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, [1993]

Summary:

"Suicide was common among the Apaches of Southern New Mexico". So begins Dan McCall's stunning recreation of two years in the life of an inexperienced young surgeon at a small hospital on a Native American reservation. Among courageous, stoic people burdened by a cruel history and beleaguered by poverty and alcoholism, Jim, fresh out of medical school, learns the healing power of compassion from a beautiful, talented Sioux-Lakota nurse and schoolteacher - Annie Messenger Bird. A searing portrait of the grim realities of the reservation, Messenger Bird is peopled by characters so full of life that even the dailiness of tragedy cannot quite defeat them: Barnabas Lester, the Dartmouth-educated Apache chief who, working within the system for his people's benefit, is accused of being the white man's pawn; Max Rubenstein, a brilliant gay surgeon with a welcome flair for comedy; Silas Lester, a teenage rebel whose love of his people and passion for change lead him into the radical American Indian Movement; and, of course, Silas's mother, Annie Messenger Bird, whose singular grace endures even when her own body turns against her. Messenger Bird is a story of quiet, practical heroism in the midst of senseless violence and despair; of how doctoring triumphs and how it fails, especially faced with the larger ills of society; and of the courage and love that transcend both politics and race. In McCall's unsentimental telling, one young doctor's experience becomes a window onto a troubled, hybrid American culture in which the humane practice of medicine - however flawed - can still provide a glimpse of the fragility and beauty of life.

OCLC:

26673422