Song of the Turtle

A follow-up volume to the editor's Voice of the Turtle, which collected Native writing from the first seven decades of this century, the present volume provides a fair overview of the overwhelming breadth and quality of Native writing published since N. Scott Momaday's groundbreaking House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer in 1969. Allen (The Sacred Hoop), a Native professor of English at UCLA, provides a well-written introduction that situates the writings in the larger streams of Native literature, contending that the predominant theme of the last two decades has been cultural conflict, centering on hope, renewal and a sense of Native identity. One notable exception is Martin Cruz Smith's ""The Russian Duck,"" an excerpt from Red Square. Allen deserves credit for including several lesser-known and emerging writers (e.g., Betty Bell, Dan Crank, Susan Power) alongside established figures such as Momaday, Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie. Thomas King's ""A Seat in the Garden"" is a rueful parody of Field of Dreams. Leslie Marmon Silko's searing ""Tony's Story"" is a fictional reworking of an actual killing. Many of these stories are available in older anthologies, however. Other critical choices are puzzling. Is Alice Walker included in the volume solely because she has ""often made note of her Cherokee ancestry""? Nevertheless, despite its idiosyncrasies, this is a good initiation for readers still unfamiliar with the wealth of contemporary Native American writing. (Aug.)