The Dreamcatcher in the Wry

This irreverent memoir-in-essays from poet and satirist Midge (Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s), a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, begins with mild musings on everyday frustrations before crescendoing into resonant commentary on colonialism and cultural appropriation. The book’s first section compiles Midge’s columns for an Eastern Washington newspaper. In “Bitter Homes and Gardens and Decolonizing My Diet,” the most memorable entry, she “practices decolonization” by stealing from her white neighbors’ gardens, mocking white romanticism of the Indigenous diet and noting that if her ancestors were offered “nettles, acorn, cattails, or The Cheesecake Factory, they would choose The Cheesecake Factory.” Part two sees Midge describing unruly visitors at national parks and writing of her experiences with Covid in amusing-enough fashion, but it’s in the 20 essays comprising the book’s final third that Midge’s righteous ferocity burns brightest. She excoriates non-Native authors writing “stereotyped Indigenous characters... from buckskin historical romances to gritty Western,” and takes ruthless aim at “Pretendians”—people “impersonating Native identities and inventing Indigenous personas”—among them Margaret B. Jones, author of the fraudulent 2008 memoir Love and Consequences (“It’s one thing to steal Native stories, it’s another to write those stories badly”). Readers will be dazzled by Midge’s abrasive wit. (Dec.)