Whiskey Tender: A Memoir by Deborah Taffa (Paperback) (PREORDER)

Description

Nonfiction – Biography amp; Autobiography – Memoir – Indigenous\nRELEASE DATE: 12\/17\/2024 (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER’S WAREHOUSE AND ARRIVE 1-2 DAYS AFTER THE RELEASE DATE)\nFinalist for the National Book Award\nLonglisted for a Carnegie Medal for Excellence\nAn Oprah Daily \”Best New Book\” and \”Riveting Nonfiction and Memoir You Need to Read\” * A New York Times \”New Book to Read\” * An Esquire \”Best Nonfiction Book\” * A Washington Post \”Book to read this summer\” * An Elle \”Best Book\” * A Zibby Mag \”Most Anticipated Book\” * A San Francisco Chronicle \”New Book to Cozy Up With\” * The Millions \”Most Anticipated\” * An Electric Lit Books By Women of Color to Read\” * An Amazon Editors \”Best Book of the Month\” * Publishers Weekly \”Best Book of the Year\” A Parade \”Best New Work By Indigenous Writers\”\nReminiscent of the works of Mary Karr and Terese Marie Mailhot, a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and of the frictions between mainstream American culture and Native inheritance; assimilation and reverence for tradition.\nDeborah Jackson Taffa was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparentscitizens of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribewere sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the American Dream.\nWhiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girlborn on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexicocomes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parents desires for her to transcend the class and Indian status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribes particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Taffas childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation.\nTaffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and presentthe promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generationsshe reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the melting pot of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance.\nAUTHOR BIO:\nDeborah Jackson Taffais a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She earned her MFA at the Nonfiction Writing Program (NWP) in Iowa City and is the director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing has appeared inThe Rumpus, theBoston Review,theLos Angeles Review of Books,A Public Space,Salon, theHuffington Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and other outlets.\nWe have more Native stories now, but we have not heard one like this.Whiskey Tenderis unexpected and propulsive, indeed tender, but also bold, and beautifully told, like a drink you didnt know you were thirsty for. This book, never anything less than mesmerizing, is full of family stories and vital Native history. It pulses and it aches, and it lifts, consistently. It threads together so much truth by the time we are done, what has been woven together equals a kind of completeness from brokenness, and a hope from knowing love and loss and love again by naming it so.Tommy Orange, National Bestselling Author ofThere There