SAS Book Club News for October
On October 16th we will be discussing Birding While Indian: A Mixed-Blood Memoir by Thomas C. Gannon. Mr. Gannon is an associate professor of English and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a lifelong birder and inhabitant of the Great Plains. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. “Since time immemorial, Native people have looked for signs from avian beings, and here, Thomas Gannon carries on those traditions in his wry chronicles about growing up and living on the Great Plains. This is a much-needed and much-appreciated addition to Native literature.”
This book spans more than fifty years of childhood walks and adult road trips to deliver, via a compendium of birds recorded and revered, the author’s life as a part-Lakota inhabitant of the Great Plains. Great Horned Owl, Sandhill Crane, Dickcissel: such species form a kind of rosary, a corrective to the rosaries that evoke Gannon’s traumatic time in an Indian boarding school in South Dakota, his mother’s devastation at racist bullying from co-workers, and the violent erasure colonialism demanded of the people and other animals indigenous to the United States.
Birding has always been Gannon’s escape and solace. He later found similar solace in literature, particularly by Native authors. He draws on both throughout this expansive, hilarious, and humane memoir. An acerbic observer–of birds, the environment, the aftershocks of history, and human nature–Gannon navigates his obsession with the ostensibly objective avocation of birding and his identity. The result is a rich reflection notably on one man’s life and on the transformative power of building a deeper relationship with the natural world.
Find us Wednesday, October 16 at Hope Lutheran Church, room 128, from 6:30 to 7:45pm talking, eating treats and discussing this book. We welcome you to come and see if this book club is something you would enjoy. If you would like to join us virtually call or email, Elisabeth Swanson at (406) 570-8325, elsswa@gmail.com before the meeting.
