To Save the Man

Filmmaker and novelist Sayles (Jamie McGillivray) offers an electrifying and convincing chronicle of resistance among Indigenous students at the Carlisle Industrial School in 1890. Antoine LaMere travels from Wisconsin to the school in southern Pennsylvania, where he joins fellow students Herbert Sweetcorn, the restless son of an 1860s war chief; Clarence Regal, a master sergeant in the school’s military training program who appears to be a model example of a Westernized Indian but who sees himself as a spy in the white man’s world; Wilma Pretty Weasel, who becomes pregnant by Sweetcorn; Makes-Trouble-in-Front, who fails to assimilate; and Grace Metoxen, a young woman with whom Antoine falls in love. Many are galvanized by rumors of the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement predicting the end of the white man’s reign and the triumph of Indigenous culture, and pledge to keep their culture alive despite the school’s mission to “kill the Indian” in them. Sayles constructs his story masterfully, weaving together the disparate motivations of his characters—from the homesick students to their Indigenous teachers and the well-meaning but misguided white administrators who see their reeducation policies as more humane than outright genocide. Readers will carry this with them for a long time. Agent: Anthony Arnove, Roam Agency. (Jan.)