In the bitter morning of defeat, when the last battle has been lost to the white man, the protagonist of The Heartsong of Charging Elk faces a series of decisions. Should he adapt to reservation life or go wandering, a fugitive in a terrible new world? Should he become docile or violent? These are the questions at the heart of James Welch's novel, which is based on the true story of an Oglala Sioux who was plucked from the reservation to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

The multiple paradoxes of his situation--a Native American acting out pseudo-Native American pageants for European audiences--are alternately comical and cruel, pathetic and poignant. "Of course," muses Charging Elk, "he knew that it was all fake and that some of the elders back home disapproved of the young men going off to participate in the white man's sham, but he no longer felt guilty about singing scalping songs or participating in scalp dances or sneak-up dances." Halfway through the tour, however, he finds himself laid up in Marseilles with broken ribs and a bout of influenza. In his delirium, he worries that the Wild West troupe may have left him behind to die--and since they are the only family he has left, Charging Elk flees the white man's "healing house" in a panic, hoping to catch up with his companions.

It's here that the novel actually begins. Welch has latched onto a fantastically rich premise: a Native American loose in a French city, delirious, hungry, and surrounded by ghosts. Charging Elk's odyssey through Marseilles is intercut with flashbacks, and his memories of the Black Hills--of life before his America was lost--generate the novel's most powerful prose. There are weak spots, too, particularly when the hero engages in some Wild Western violence. Passionate and unsteady, The Heartsong of Charging Elk tends to move in and out of focus. But during its intervals of clarity, it's hard to resist. --Emily White


From Publishers Weekly
Anyone who has read Welch's Fools Crow, that masterly evocation of life among the Plains Indians, is aware of his extraordinary ability to convey the experience of Native American tribal society. This book will stand as another literary milestone. Here Welch illuminates the experience of an Oglala Sioux trapped in an alien culture, lacking the resources to emerge from a nightmare of dislocation, isolation and fear. When 23-year-old Charging Elk awakens in a French hospital in 1892, he has already witnessed the battle of Little Big Horn and the incarceration of his Lakota tribe in the Pine Ridge Reservation. Unable to bear the loss of his freedom, he joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, but debilitated by the flu in Marseilles, he fell from his horse and was injured. Unaccountably, the show has moved on without making provisions for Charging Elk to join them. The plight of this desperate young man, barely literate in English, unable to speak French or to read any language, confused by nearly every aspect of the white world and a visible outcast from its society, is the burden of this haunting novel, based on an actual incident. Fleeing the hospital, Charging Elk begins a painful emotional odyssey. He is arrested for vagabondage and, when released, a bureaucratic error forbids him to leave the country. The kindness of strangers rescues him several times, but his basic innocence of French culture and his instinctive reaction to what his tradition considers spiritual evil culminate in a tragic act. Welch's achievement here lies in his ability to convey the way a Lakota Indian would have interpreted the wasichu's world. Questions about the hallmarks of civilization and implicit observations about the ease of betrayal and the rarity of true Christian behavior are integral. This story has the potential of melodrama, but Welch tells it quietly, in clear, lucid prose suitable to the restraint of his hero. Redolently atmospheric of late-19th-century France, this is a stirring tale of a man's triumph over circumstances, a gripping story of solid literary merit and surprising emotional clout. National author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Based on historic fact, this is a moving story of cultural alienation and assimilation. Charging Elk, a "wild Indian" (an Oglala who has not moved to the Reservation or learned English) is recruited for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. During a performance in Marseilles, Charging Elk, sick with influenza, falls from his horse, breaking several ribs. He is hospitalized, and by the time he regains consciousness the Wild West Show has moved on. Unable to communicate with the hospital staff, and noticing that people seem to leave the hospital only when they die, Charging Elk determines to recover his strength enough to make his escape. After living on the streets for four days, Charging Elk is arrested for vagabondage, and his problems multiple. He and his captors have no common language; the American consulate is involved, although Charging Elk is not an American citizen; and it is learned that a hospital mix-up has resulted in the issuance of a death certificate for this "Peau Rouge" instead of another. Sixteen years go by before Charging Elk sees another Indian, when the Wild West Show again returns to Marseilles. He learns that the wilderness he left in Dakota is no more. But it matters less than Charging Elk thought it would, since he realizes that France has become his home. Recommended for large public libraries.---Debbie Bogenschutz Cincinnati State Technical and Community Coll., OH Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Based loosely on historical events, Welch's novel is the story of a Native American abandoned in France at the turn of the century. After years of fighting with the government, the Oglala Sioux have finally surrendered to the American government and begun to adjust to life on the reservation. Determined to remain free, Charging Elk chooses a solitary life in the wild, away from his tribe. His fierce independence attracts the attention of showman Buffalo Bill, and soon Charging Elk finds himself traveling through Europe with the Wild West Show. In Marseilles, the young Indian is injured and during his long convalescence, the show moves on, leaving him behind. Doomed to exile by the incompetence of the American bureaucrats who try to help him, Charging Elk lives as an outcast because of his exotic appearance and his inability to speak either French or English. His life in France is lonely and filled with confusion and longing, and as the years pass, and events conspire against him, he is haunted by sad dreams of his family and homeland. Beautifully written by an award-winning author, this novel is both poignant and enjoyable. Expect high demand. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


From Kirkus Reviews
Award-winning Native American novelist Welch (Fools Crow, 1986, etc.) tells a powerful story of a young Lakota who's stranded in France--and who will spend an ordeal of dark years in that strange land before regaining a life and his dignity. Charging Elk was only a boy when his Sioux band surrendered to US soldiers and became reservation Indians in 1877. Twelve years later, he seizes a chance to tour the world with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show as an alternative to rotting on the rez. Hospitalized with broken ribs and the flu in Marseille, he recovers to find himself abandoned by the traveling show and takes to the streets in confusion. Arrested as a vagabond, Charging Elk comes to the attention of the American consul, who gets him out of jail and into better quarters. But his supposedly brief stay with a kind family of fishmongers turns into years when French authorities refuse to let him go home. Speaking scant French and no English, Charging Elk eventually gets a menial job and moves out on his own. Then his loneliness places him in a compromising situation: a prostitute he's come to love betrays him to a black-hearted homosexual chef. Provoked into killing the man, he goes to trial and becomes a cause célèbre, but he's convicted of murder anyway and sent to prison for life. Incredibly, after 11 years of quiet gardening, he receives a pardon, and in a remarkable series of reversals he makes a family in Marseille and finds a measure of peace . . . until the day when a chance suddenly appears for Charging Elk to return home. Despite some contrived plot twists, Welch's study of a man forced to adapt to a world utterly unlike his own--and a richly imagined world it is--is well sustained. An amply rewarding read. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Stranger in a Strange Land

The historically inspired premise of James Welch's The Heartsong of Charging Elk -- an Oglala Sioux, stranded in late 19th-century Marseilles -- is so rich and intriguing that one fears the novel's action might not be able to support it. That Welch succeeds is testament to his sympathetic characters and the ingenious patience of his storytelling.

This patience echoes the consciousness of the novel's protagonist, Charging Elk. In his youth, he'd hoped to follow Crazy Horse; a "wild Indian from the badlands" who "never surrendered" to reservation life, Charging Elk finds himself prized in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He chases buffalo in the arenas of Europe and marvels at the unexpected cities ("Once they looked at statues or pictures in a long house of wood floors and stone stairs; once they went to a showhouse and listened to a lady with large breasts sing high and big"). An accident under the big top, combined with a series of bureaucratic confusions, strands Charging Elk in France, where various people -- a newspaperman, a vice consul of the U.S. embassy, a fishmonger -- take an interest and attempt to help the disoriented "savage."

As Charging Elk slowly adjusts, learning French and struggling to find his place, these other perspectives suggest how good deeds are colored by self-interest and add new dimensions to the novel's world. Welch deftly illuminates many lives while always maintaining the narrative's momentum. What is daring is the patience with which characters' humanity is investigated and how this is managed within a wildly inventive plot. Charging Elk's adventures lead through love to murder and beyond. The writing's texture and dexterity are amplified with each complication.

The Heartsong of Charging Elk shows us unfamiliar lands from unexpected angles. It fascinates us with details of 19th-century France yet never forgets the homeland that Charging Elk has left behind -- a place that is vanishing and to which it may be impossible to return. This is the rare novel that is consistently surprising: The prostitute does not turn out to have a heart of gold, people do not always overcome their prejudices, and characters disappear from the plot when their lives seem to call from beyond the margins. "The Great Mystery works that way," Charging Elk reminds us. "All things have reason, but He chooses to let his children figure them out."

Peter Rock is the author of the novels Carnival Wolves and This Is the Place. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, he now lives in Philadelphia. His email address is rock@aya.yale.edu.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Inspired by actual historical fact, James Welch's The Heartsong of Charging Elk tells the story of an Oglala Sioux who travels the extraordinary geographical and cultural distance from tribal life in the Black Hills of South Dakota to existence on the streets of Marseille. As a young boy, Charging Elk witnessed his people's massacre of Custer's Seventh Cavalry at Little Big Horn, followed by years of futile fighting and wandering until the Sioux were finally lured to the Pine Ridge reservation. But he prefers life in the Stronghold, living by his wits and skills in the old way." "Ironically, it is Charging Elk's horsemanship and independent air that cause Buffalo Bill to recruit him for his Wild West Show, which travels across "the big water" to create a sensation in the capitals of Europe. Charging Elk and his Sioux companions are living a life touched by fame and marked by previously unthinkable experiences - until he falls ill in Marseille and, through a bureaucratic mix-up, is left behind in a hospital while the show travels on. Scared, disoriented, Charging Elk escapes - only to fall into a series of events, including a love affair with a prostitute and a shocking murder, that will change his life utterly beyond his imagination.

FROM THE CRITICS

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

"Not a casual read." Welch's novel is an "interesting, complicated, and completely different" tale of an Oglala Sioux's odyssey from the Great Plains to the back streets of nineteenth-century France. "Very well-written and entertaining." "A definite recommendation."

Publishers Weekly

HAnyone who has read Welch's Fools Crow, that masterly evocation of life among the Plains Indians, is aware of his extraordinary ability to convey the experience of Native American tribal society. This book will stand as another literary milestone. Here Welch illuminates the experience of an Oglala Sioux trapped in an alien culture, lacking the resources to emerge from a nightmare of dislocation, isolation and fear. When 23-year-old Charging Elk awakens in a French hospital in 1892, he has already witnessed the battle of Little Big Horn and the incarceration of his Lakota tribe in the Pine Ridge Reservation. Unable to bear the loss of his freedom, he joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, but debilitated by the flu in Marseilles, he fell from his horse and was injured. Unaccountably, the show has moved on without making provisions for Charging Elk to join them. The plight of this desperate young man, barely literate in English, unable to speak French or to read any language, confused by nearly every aspect of the white world and a visible outcast from its society, is the burden of this haunting novel, based on an actual incident. Fleeing the hospital, Charging Elk begins a painful emotional odyssey. He is arrested for vagabondage and, when released, a bureaucratic error forbids him to leave the country. The kindness of strangers rescues him several times, but his basic innocence of French culture and his instinctive reaction to what his tradition considers spiritual evil culminate in a tragic act. Welch's achievement here lies in his ability to convey the way a Lakota Indian would have interpreted the wasichu's world. Questions about the hallmarks of civilization and implicit observations about the ease of betrayal and the rarity of true Christian behavior are integral. This story has the potential of melodrama, but Welch tells it quietly, in clear, lucid prose suitable to the restraint of his hero. Redolently atmospheric of late-19th-century France, this is a stirring tale of a man's triumph over circumstances, a gripping story of solid literary merit and surprising emotional clout. National author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

Based on historic fact, this is a moving story of cultural alienation and assimilation. Charging Elk, a "wild Indian" (an Oglala who has not moved to the Reservation or learned English) is recruited for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. During a performance in Marseilles, Charging Elk, sick with influenza, falls from his horse, breaking several ribs. He is hospitalized, and by the time he regains consciousness the Wild West Show has moved on. Unable to communicate with the hospital staff, and noticing that people seem to leave the hospital only when they die, Charging Elk determines to recover his strength enough to make his escape. After living on the streets for four days, Charging Elk is arrested for vagabondage, and his problems multiple. He and his captors have no common language; the American consulate is involved, although Charging Elk is not an American citizen; and it is learned that a hospital mix-up has resulted in the issuance of a death certificate for this "Peau Rouge" instead of another. Sixteen years go by before Charging Elk sees another Indian, when the Wild West Show again returns to Marseilles. He learns that the wilderness he left in Dakota is no more. But it matters less than Charging Elk thought it would, since he realizes that France has become his home. Recommended for large public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/00.]--Debbie Bogenschutz Cincinnati State Technical and Community Coll., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Brad Knickerbocker - Christian Science Monitor

...powerfully and movingly spoken. The work is much more than a tale about an Indian man. It is sometimes sorrowful, as it would have to be given the way things have turnes out for Native Americans. But in the end, the book is healing and redemptive, a revelation of the human heart and spirit...This is Welch's eighth book. One looks forward to the ninth, tenth and eleventh.

Alan Tack - Native Peoples

In this ambitious novel, the central character's odyssey takes us beyond alienation and separateness toward personal reintegration and community. That odyssey and the book as a whole not only dramatize the traumatic effects and ironies of cultural alienation, but also expand our capacity to wonder at the tranforming and redemptive power of the human spirit.Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

I just finished reading The Heartsong of Charging Elk. I think Jim Welch has written a masterpiece.  — (Leslie Marmon Silko, author of Ceremony, a classic of Native American literature)

There are books you read once and put away. There are books you read once and never forget. And then there are those special books you keep returning to, reading them once or twice a year for the rest of your life. — (Sherman Alexie, author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and writer of the acclaimed indy film Smoke Signals).

The Heartsong of Charging Elk is vividly imagined and wonderfully readable, a romance, a fable, and a sternly realistic story about salvaging emotional victory. Hats off to James Welch.  — (William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky)

Ivan Doig