{"id":2383,"date":"2020-10-08T09:18:39","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T14:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=2383"},"modified":"2020-10-08T09:33:45","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T14:33:45","slug":"elizabeth-cook-lynn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2020\/10\/08\/elizabeth-cook-lynn\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Cook-Lynn: New book explores familiar tribal themes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Elizabeth Cook-Lynn. Courtesy photo\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n
A novel called \u201cWinter Counts\u201d<\/div>\r\n
Thursday, October 8, 2020<\/div>\r\n
By Professor Elizabeth Cook-Lynn<\/div>\r\n
Native Sun News Today Columnist<\/div>\r\n
nativesunnews.today<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nA new book of fiction, Winter Counts<\/em><\/a>, is a novel about the Rosebud Indian Reservation by a lawyer, David Heska Wanbli Weiden<\/a>, who lives in Denver and has joined the available\u00a0list of books about the lawlessness on Indian lands, the corruption of tribal councils and the reclaiming of Indian identity.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWhat’s new about that?\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWhat’s new is that its protagonist is a Lakota named Virgil Wounded Horse,\u00a0caught up in an Indian world filled with losers and crooks, a man who becomes a reservation hood who believes all governments are corrupt and so he comes home to save his people from their own misery. \u00a0\r\n

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\r\nWinter Counts<\/eM><\/a> by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. Harper Collins<\/a>, 2020.\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nOur protagonist is not only an unreliable narrator, he is a thug filled with the righteous need to become a hero in the tribe as he takes up with an old girlfriend, the daughter of a former tribal councilman, Ben Short Bear, and tries to help his own debased people.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nSeeing himself as a savior, Wounded Horse is particularly hard on\u00a0the tribal government and its corrupt institutions as he goes about saving his nephew, Nathan, from Denver drug kingpin because there is no law on these Indian lands. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nIt is a long story sprinkled with references to Virgil\u2019s version of ceremony and history of the Lakota, even the yuwipi<\/em><\/a> experience and Lost Bird<\/a>. \u00a0\r\n

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