The Death of Jim Loney

This is such a heart-aching book. It's gorgeous and simple and so sad. I read it for a course at University and am so glad to have encountered this treasure. I've marked the hell out of its few pages. My professor highly encouraged us to write all over our books, as a way of CLAIMING the books and the reading process as MINE. (Something I've always been a fan of, anyways). Concise and so powerful. Each word is perfectly chosen. Everyone should read this novel.

Nihilistic and lonely, Welch offers a vision of Manifest Destiny in reverse, and an exploration of, amongst other things, the Anglo desire to Cowboy and Indian, though in the context of that novel there is nothing romantic about these romanticized ideals; there is the wind and there are the ghosts and bottles line up in front of the middle and the final solution is personal Armageddon.

Reading this, I could not help making comparisons with the play, "Death of a Salesman." While James Welch may not appreciate his story of a half-breed American Indian being compared to a play about a very white, middle-class male, I found my reaction to both very similar. Despite the sense of doom, from the very beginning, I found myself foolishly hoping, as I did with Willy Loman, that Jim would latch on to one of the opportunities offered him, and change his fate. At the same time I knew that Jim, like Willy, was a finished product by the time I'd met him, and that simply changing locations (or jobs) would not make any real difference. Of course, Willy was more a product of his own choices, while Loney is more a product of other peoples'disregard. This is where the story of the white man and the Indian diverge.Welch is an excellant writer. This book is concise and neat. Very little is extraneous or superfluous to the story. There are a couple of small flaws, however. While he does an excellent job of portraying the feelings and emotions of Loney's sister, I thought he did not do as good a job with his white girl friend. To me she came off just a bit one-dimensional, but then, it is often difficult for a male writer to explain the female side of a relationship. I also thought he could have done away with some of the explanations at the end regarding Indian alienation from the white culture, and Officer Painter's sudden realization of Loney's "plan." Perhaps Welch didn't trust in his own abilities to bring this out within the story, but he had already done an admirable job, and it didn't require repetition.All in all, I would recommend this book very highly. You will probably end up, like I did, reading it in one night, and then wishing that you hadn't finished it so quickly, so that you would still have it to look forward to.

Ýt is a compeling novel with unique descrpýtýons of a modern Native American who is caught between his past and present.Jim ,a half- breed with a blurry past, is struggling with self-identification.While trying to reinvent his lost identity, Jim is offered help from people who love him.However,neither social relations nor cheap wines help him get over his identity crisis.As he gets more involved with his subconcious thoughts and dreams, he starts to become a non-person in the small town of Montana.As he refuses to get help from people who try to bring order to his life, he realizes the liveliness of the land and as a result identifies with it for a regeneration of his soul. Even though,the plot is quite simple, the intriguing descriptions make the novel an extraordinary one.Inarguably,everyone can find certain points or characters to identify with himself.

Having read Fools Crow I was aware that James Welch has a wonderful way with words. However, I was unprepared for this book - it was like sitting in the head of the principal character, Jim Loney. I found myself so involved that I was willing Jim to come out of his predicament in one piece before I reached the back cover of the book. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but I went through a roller-coaster of emotions reading this book. It brought to mind some people I knew, but I think that it was most poignant because I thought, 'a flame extinguished even before it had enough time to burn bright... at last he seems to have found some happiness.... why didn't they try harder to save him....why did he give up so easily, etc. etc.'It's a stark and wonderful story....read it!!!