Remnants of the First Earth

Ray Young Bear

Dec 2007 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

About this ebook

The American Indian author of Black Eagle Child paints “a portrait of a writer struggling both to preserve his people’s heritage and to turn it into art” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
Ray A. Young Bear’s work has been called “magnificent” by the New York Times and “a national treasure” by the Bloomsbury Review. Dazzlingly original, but with deep roots in his traditional Mesquakie culture, Young Bear is a master wordsmith poised with trickster-like aplomb between the ancient world of his forefathers and the ever-encroaching “blurred face of modernity.”
 
Remnants of the First Earth continues the story of Edgar Bearchild—Young Bear’s fictionalized alter ego—which began with Black Eagle Child, a New York Times Notable Book for 1992. Young Bear revisits the Black Eagle Child Settlement and its residents, including Ted Facepaint, Rose Grassleggings, Junior Pipestar, Lorna Bearcap, and Luciano Bearchild. At the center of the novel is a murder investigation involving a powerful shaman holding court at the local Ramada Inn, negligent white cops from nearby Why Cheer, and corrupt tribal authorities. This lyrical narrative swirls through the present and into the mysteries of the age-old stories and myths that still haunt, inform, and enlighten this uniquely American community.
 
“Young Bear’s prose pulses with lyrical ferocity, blending narrative, verse and tribal myth in a seamless web . . . Young Bear, an acclaimed poet, here emerges as a major Native novelist.” —Publishers Weekly

About the author

Ray Young Bear is a lifetime resident of the Meskwaki Settlement in central Iowa. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Virginia Quarterly Review, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, the Iowa Review, the American Poetry Review, and the Best American Poetry, and have been collected into three books: Winter of the Salamander (1980), The Invisible Musician (1990), and The Rock Island Hiking Club (2001). He also wrote Black Eagle Child: The Facepaint Narratives (1995), a novel combining prose and poetry that was heralded by the New York Times as “magnificent.” Its sequel, Remnants of the First Earth (1998), won the Ruth Suckow Award as an outstanding work of fiction about Iowa.

The recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ray Young Bear has taught creative writing and Native American literature at numerous schools across the United States, including the University of Iowa and the Institute of American Indian Arts. A singer as well as an author, Young Bear is a cofounder of the Woodland Singers & Dancers, which performs contemporary and traditional tribal dances throughout the country.