Solar Storms

by Linda Hogan

Overview

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Linda Hogan, Solar Storms tells the moving, “luminous” (Publishers Weekly) story of Angela Jenson, a troubled Native American girl coming of age in the foster system in Oklahoma, who decides to reunite with her family.

At seventeen, Angela returns to the place where she was raised—a stunning island town that lies at the border of Canada and Minnesota—where she finds that an eager developer is planning a hydroelectric dam that will leave sacred land flooded and abandoned. Joining up with three other concerned residents, Angela fights the project, reconnecting with her ancestral roots as she does so.

Harrowing, lyrical, and boldly incisive, Solar Storms is a powerful examination of the clashes between cultures and traumatic repercussions that have shaped American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439108444
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	02/26/1997
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	89,916
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Linda Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and activist. She is the author of Dwellings, The Book of Medicines, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; the American Book Award winner Seeing Through the Sun; and Mean Spirit, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has been the recipient of several awards, including an NEA Fellowship, a Minnesota Arts Board grant, a Lannan Award, and Guggenheim Fellowship. She was also inducted into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame and served as a Writer in Residence for the Chickasaw Nation.

Editorial Reviews

In her luminous, quietly compelling second novel, Hogan, a Chickasaw poet and writer (whose first novel, Mean Spirit, was a finalist for the Pulitzer), ties a young woman's coming-of-age to the fate of the natural world she comes to inhabit. Angela Jensen, a troubled 17-year-old, narrates the tale of her return to Adam's Rib, an island town in the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. Tucked into a pristine landscape of countless islands, wild animals and desperately harsh winters, it's her Native American family's homeland. As a child, Angela was abandoned by her mother, Hannah Wing, but not before Hannah had permanently scarred half of Angela's face; earlier, Hannah herself had been separated from her family and unspeakably abused. In Adam's Rib, Angela is reunited with her great-grandmother, Agnes Iron, and Agnes's mother, Dora-Rouge; she also spends a winter with Bush, a solitary woman who briefly raised her and, years earlier and also briefly, raised Hannah. Just as Angela discovers through her family's elemental way of life her own blood ties to the land, the threat of a huge hydroelectric dam project ruins her idyll. The four women-Angela, Agnes, Dora-Rouge and Bush-embark on a dangerous journey far northward to visit the homeland, where Hannah Wing is known to live. Hogan's finely tuned descriptions of the land and its spiritual significance draw a parallel between the ravages suffered by the environment and those suffered by Angela's mother. And, as the land is transformed, so are the lives of the characters, often in deeply resonant ways. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Chickasaw novelist and poet Hogan has numerous books to her credit, including the award-winning Mean Spirit (LJ 11/1/90). She has certainly influenced newcomers W.S. Penn (The Absence of Angels, LJ 1/94) and Betty Louise Bell (Faces in the Moon, LJ 3/1/94). Rich in spirituality, language, landscape, emotion, myth, and healing, this new work unfolds to reveal four Native American women intent on saving sacred areas from the construction of a hydroelectric dam. The central quest belongs to Angela, a young woman seeking to explain her mother's history of child abuse. While answers elude her, like precious medicinal plants quickly inundated, Angela still discovers herself and her heritage. Sadly, the most dangerous creatures the women encounter in the remote lands near Canada are other humans. Recommended for most collections.-Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon, Eugene

Library Journal

ogan writes beautifully and with great wisdom in any literary form, from poetry and the thoughtful essays in "Dwellings" to fiction. Her first novel, "Mean Spirit" (1990), earned high praise and awards, as should this, her second, a tale of five generations of Native American women, exceptional in its voice, its story, and its intent. Hogan transports us to a realm of wisdom and sorrow, fear and love, anger and hope, change and faith, a world in which the fate of every human being is tied inextricably to the fate of the land. We learn this from Angel, a sturdy young woman of 17 with long red hair, a beautiful but severely scarred face, and no memories or knowledge of her past. She has, however, discovered her birthplace, the cold, watery region between Minnesota and Canada, and she has been welcomed by three "mighty women," her great-grandmother, her grandmother, and her father's abandoned wife. As Angel takes her place in this spirit-filled world, she learns the tragic truth about her tormented mother and bravely joins the battle against a hydroelectric dam that threatens their home. Hogan--magnetic, ardent, and sagacious--has created a universe within these pages that readers won't want to leave.

Donna Seaman