Crow Mary by Kathleen Grissom

 

Title: Crow Mary

Author:  Kathleen Grissom

Narrated by:  Carolina Hoyas

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 46 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

What book, movie, or show do you enjoy that features a person standing up for themselves and others?

Goes First is a young Indigenous woman in the Crow tribe in 1872.  She is sixteen and in love  with a young man destined to be the future chief.  She loves her life with her tribe, but often thinks about the violent death of her Grandma when she was a young girl.  Her Grandmother’s brother becomes a Grandfather to her.  Her life takes a change when her fiancée is killed.  Her father, the chief, tells her that a white trader, Farwell, would like her as a wife and it would help out their tribe.  Goes First marries Farwell and her name changes to Crow Mary.  She tries to straddle both the White and Native worlds as they fall slowly in love. 

Their idyllic world is shattered when they witness the Cypress Hills Massacre of 1873.  Crow Mary saves the lives of four Indigenous women who are being held captive.  Farwell reports the massacre and tries to get the people responsible to pay for the crime, but the public sentiment turns against him.  This event changes the course of their lives forever.  How will their family survive as the world they live in changes forever?

There is a great foreword at the beginning of the novel from a descendant of Crow Mary whom the author worked with to make sure that this story was culturally sensitive to her story and the story of the Crow people.  There is also a great author’s note at the end that describes how the author came across this story.  She visited a fort and an interpreter acted out the story of Crow Mary which immediately intrigued the author.  It is a fascinating story that I had never heard before.  I am so glad that Grissom found this true story of an intriguing woman and brought it forward for the world to learn about.

The story made me really think about alcohol and how its effects could really destroy lives.  This story also made me realize why prohibition may have been enacted.  It was disturbing how alcohol was poisoned and used to keep the Indigenous people under control and wasting all of their money on it rather than needed supplies.

It was sad how an entire way of life for the Crow people was annihilated over time.  The discussion of the boarding schools and how children were just kidnapped from their parents was heartbreaking.  The culture of the Crow and other tribes was different than the European way of living, but it had its own beauty, traditions, and culture. 

Carolina Hoyas was a great narrator for this novel.  I felt like she was the voice of Crow Mary and I enjoyed learning her story.  This was my first Kathleen Grissom novel, but I do have a copy of The Kitchen House that I need to read.