Alternatively: Everything You Know About This Book From Reading the Title is Wrong. This is not, for example, a retelling of Native American history. The title is a jab directed not just at white people. And this is not not a book that talks a lot about Indian installation and performance artists with whom the author, director of the National Museum of the American Indian, is personally acquainted.
This is a rambling discussion of Native American culture and art, both contemporary and throughout history, spoken with both love a deeply critical eye towards most everything. This approach turns up some interesting finds, such as the fact that many famous speeches and writings attributed to Native Americans are in fact anything but--Chief Seattle's speech immortalized in the children's book Brother Eagle, Sister Sky was actually a disputed speech rewritten almost completely by a University of Texas instructor in 1970; bestselling "autobiography" The Education of Little Tree was written by a white supremacist. Moral of the story: a large part of what is considered Native American tradition and culture is made up, but that doesn't exactly make it not real.
There is much discussion, both proud and embarrassed, of the American Indian Movement (AIM) of the sixties and seventies, particularly the occupation of Alcatraz, the siege of Wounded Knee, and the raid on the BIA headquarters. All worthy of examination, especially with Smith's need to deconstruct any attempt at a single narrative of these complex events.
But that's not what we get. Rather, these events are visited in passing mention or in more brief discussion than they deserve at points throughout the book*. What the reader will discover in the pages at the back--but as they've likely realized just a few chapters in--is that this is not a cohesively written book, but instead a collection of essays and speeches first published elsewhere. Now, there's nothing wrong with a wide-spanning collection of essays that return to a common topic (for example I'm currently reading Vonnegut's Armageddon in Retrospect, and we are 3 for 3 with the firebombing of Dresden), but the reader should probably be informed as part of the Introduction, not the Afterward, lest they get fed up with being introduced to the same topic of conversation from the same starting point over and over and over.
If I were to recommend this book, I'd suggest reading most of Part I, a couple chapters of Part III, and definitely the essays "States of Amnesia" and "A Place Called Irony" (the latter of which is particularly brilliant). The rest I'd give a pass unless you're really into reading about conceptual installation and performance art and believe them to be at the forefront of contemporary cultural representation. I don't.
TL,DR: Native Americans' hypothetical facebook status would read: "In a relationship with Native American Culture: It's complicated." Also, performance art, man! Pretty great if that's what you're into.
Ultimately I'd say unless you really like reading about conceptual performance art (as I've mentioned profusely that do not), about 8 out of 19 essays are worth reading, which equates to a rating of about 4/10? I'd probably give it a lot more if I'd just skipped the boring parts.
Word Count: ~65,000
Kristie's Total Points: 370,248
*Smith apparently did write a book on this topic, called Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. I haven't read it, but I'm sure it's worth checking out. If you want a somewhat more sympathetic telling by someone who was closely involved with AIM, I'd recommend Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog. (Actually, I'll flat out recommend it whether or not you're interested in that particular piece of history).
