Steven Newcomb: Author shares story of life on Yakama Nation

Dr. Walker is in his 15th year of working in collaboration with the Yakama Nation, where he spent his first four years as a psychologist with the Indian Health Service. He is a brilliant researcher and a fierce critic of mental health ideology and practice in Indian Country, an intergenerational theme he explores in both books. For example, he touches upon the Haiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians, where many native people from across the U.S. were tragically and falsely declared "insane" and committed until it was closed down in 1933. He wrote these novels as an effort to raise consciousness while continuing his research and commentary on oppressive features of mental health practice among Native peoples.

Dr. Walker knows how to connect the dots while using his fictional characters to ask deep questions about the continuing legacy of intergenerational colonialism. A self-described ‘mixed blood’ of Cherokee ancestry through his paternal Barlow grandmothers, David likely has his avatar in the narrator of these books, Dr. Ret Barlow. David has personally experienced the guidance that comes from dreaming of ancestors long passed, and Barlow’s dreams interspersed through both novels originate from David’s own journal which he’s kept over the years while working with the Yakama community. His life experiences provide his narrative with a sense of profundity and authenticity.

I was deeply moved by the way in which Dr. Walker has woven anecdotal accounts of history into his two books, and by means of that method he brings the history alive by reminding us how we got to the place we are today. For example, Dr. Ret Barlow at one point describes Fort Simcoe State Park in Washington State. “I strolled past three old mountain howitzers—1850 prairie-carriage 12-pounders, originals from the days of the Yakama Wars. They still bore down upon those families, I thought, even though it’s been a long time since they had to be kept loaded.”