Black Eagle Child The Facepaint Narratives

“A magnificent piece of literature.” —The New York Times
 
“Vastly complex and engaging . . . Sophisticated and cunning . . . Young Bear has a novelist’s eye for precise social and atmospheric detail.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“This book is a story with great liveliness. It reminds me of Huckleberry Finn but with real huckleberries this time. The complicated mysteries and zaniness of the Native American soul rise up in the story, and the ‘other world’ crosses this world in a way that is deeply satisfying.” —Robert Bly
 
“It is risky to be an Indian these days, as it has always been in the face of the colonial and imperial powers that crowd around us. That truth makes every sentence, story, and image of Ray Young Bear’s fictional and poetic works a decisive landmark for telling the modern world what it means to be a tribal man.” —Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
This wonderful volume of stories, told in both prose and poetry, floats between memoir and fiction, history and storytelling.” —Library Journal
 
“Fascinating and accomplished . . . A unique account and a milestone in Native American literature.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
Praise for Ray Young Bear
“Ray Young Bear’s work is the gift of an anguished imagination marked with grief and humor. His writing alternately lashes and heals, but always instructs from a deep vision of the world.” —Louise Erdrich
 
“[Young Bear] speaks from a kind of timeless experience; his voice is the voice of the coyote or singer of Beowulf or the inventor of words.” —N. Scott Momaday
 
“Ray Young Bear is the best poet in Indian Country. Sacred and profane, profound and irreverent, his poetry pushes you into a corner, roughs you up a bit, maybe takes your wallet, and then gives you a long kiss goodbye.” —Sherman Alexie
 
“Ray Young Bear is generally acknowledged as the nation’s foremost contemporary Native American poet. . . . [He] is destined for even wider and more fulsome recognition as a national treasure.” —The Bloomsbury Review